Wednesday 26 August 2015

Shocking details of how Oronsaye, Maina, others allegedly stole N1 Billion from pension funds


Oronsanye and Maina
By Dayo Aiyetan
In a little over a month, the sparks will start to fly in what might turn out the most celebrated trial of this year as the prosecution of the former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Steve Oronsaye; former chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, PRTT, Abdulrasheed Maina; and others accused of siphoning over N1 billion from pensioners’ funds, commences.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had on July 10 slammed a 24-count charge on Messrs Oronsaye, Maina and Osarenkhole Afe, a consultant who worked with the Task Team, as well as his company, Fredrick Hamilton Global Services Limited, which was used as conduit pipe to siphon funds from the pension unit of the HOSF’s office.
Although Mr. Maina is not listed as one of the respondents in the case, his name features prominently in all the charges and he is being prosecuted along with the others.
EFCC sources indicate that his name is not listed among the respondents because “he is at large and cannot be tried in absentia”.
Messrs Oronsaye, Maina and the others are accused of using bogus or inflated biometrics enrolment contracts, dubious “collective allowances” and other schemes to steal money from the account in which pensioners’ funds were kept.
About N1 billion is believed to have been illegally taken out of the pension funds at the Pension Office of the office of the Head of Service for dubious biometric enrolment contracts while more than N100 million is believed to have been withdrawn in the name of collective allowances to staff of the pension department travelling on official duty.
Even now, investigators are still digging into the pension fund’s accounts, as it is believed that more of the stolen funds would be discovered.
Specifically, the accused persons allegedly awarded contracts for the conduct of biometric enrolment of pensioners in several states to front companies owned by them, their aides, friends and cronies.
The companies include Fredrick Hamilton, Innovation Solutions and Projects Ltd, Xangee Technologies and Fatidek Ventures. Others are Obalando Enterprises, Jolance Integrated Concepts, Vivian Ebony Nig. Ltd, MOF Investments and Fesbee Global Resources.
In some instances, the contracts were just schemes for siphoning money as in reality, no jobs were ever carried out yet monies were paid out to front companies which then paid them back to the accused persons.
Mr. Oronsaye’s sin is that as Head of Service, he approved the payments for the bogus contracts and also allegedly benefitted from the graft as some of the stolen funds were reportedly paid to him.
In fact, the Permanent Secretary, Establishment and Record in the HOSF’s office, Charles Bonat, who supervised the Pension Office, accused Oronsaye of usurping his functions, including the signing of cheques.
Mr. Bonat, who indicted Oronsaye for setting up the Task Team without a formal letter, terms of reference or duration and for approving payments contrary to regulations, said the former Head of Service “took away my duties and responsibilities which he now assigned to the task team”.
The Permanent Secretary, who has since retired, said further that Mr. Oronsaye also took from him the role of being the accounting officer of the pension accounts by making himself and others signatories to the accounts.
Others people implicated Oronsaye in the monumental fraud are Phina Ukamaka Chidi, a former deputy director at the Pension Office of the office of the Head of Service, who has also been standing trial since last year for stealing billions from pensioners’ funds, and Salami Kareem Adesokan, a former stores officer at the Customs Immigrations and Prisons Pension Office, CIPPO.
In 2011, Ms. Chidi told investigators that shortly before Mr. Oronsaye retired as Head of Service, she was asked by her boss, the director in the Pension Office of the office of the Head of Service, Teidi Shaibu, who is also being prosecuted for pension fraud, to source for companies to be used siphoning funds for Mr. Oronsaye using bogus contracts.
The plan, she said, was to award bogus contracts to such companies, which would later return the contract sums to Mr. Oronsaye.
“I was asked by Dr Shaibu to source for company names to execute some contracts the proceeds of which should be given to Mr. Oronsaye as the Head of Service then. The proceeds had been given to Oronsaye,” Chidi claimed in her statement to the EFCC on January 1, 2011.
“When the money came in from the contract from Olanipekun, he used to give to Ikenna in Zenith and Benni in UBA for safe custody before they were given to Dr Shaibu to give the former HOS Mr. Oronsaye,” Ms. Chidi revealed.
She added that such bogus contracts were thus awarded to about 60 companies for sums ranging from N4 million to N15 milion.
In his own statement to investigators, Mr. Adesokan alleged that he was also used to siphon money from pension accounts as he was asked to seek companies to be used to receive monies for contracts that were never awarded or executed.
Mr. Adesokan used three companies, Fatidek Ventures, Obalando Enterprises and Jolance Integrated Concepts, and the three firms received a total N147, 019,800 for non-existent contracts. In his statement, he claimed that he was instructed by Mr. Maina to withdraw the money and give it to His (Mr. Maina’s) secretary, Anne Igwe, who later delivered it to her boss.
However, Mr. Adesokan also claimed that each time he withdrew money and handed over to Igwe for delivery to Mr. Maina, he noticed that the money was usually moved to Mr. Oronsaye’s vehicle at the car park of the office of the Head of Service.
“When the money were collected and handed over to Anne Igwe, Mr. Maina’s secretary, I used to noticed the onward movement of these money again to Oronsaye, the then Head of Civil Service of the Federation, through his then Special Assistant in person of Ayo Otepola and Oronsaye’s driver,” he said.
He added that he was able to notice such movements of cash because “during 6.30 pm to 8 pm because this time I used to be in the mosque by this time and the mosque was such located that you will see anybody entering Block D of the Phase 11 of the federal secretariat.”
“I normally see the handling and movement of bags popularly known as Ghana Must Go,” he further stated.
However, the case against Mr. Oronsaye peters into insignificance compared to the accusations against Mr. Maina, who was appointed by Mr. Oronsaye in 2010 to reform the pension administration at the office of the Head of Service.
As chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, Mr. Maina had unearthed the monumental looting of funds from the pension funds and blown the whistle on the likes of Messrs Shaibu and Chidi, which led to their prosecution.
Now, Mr. Maina is accused of doing exactly as the people he exposed by looting close to a billion naira from money meant for the payment of pensioners.
Several of those who were part of the scheme orchestrated to steal the money have already confessed their role and all pointed at Mr. Maina as the architect of the monumental fraud.
The first scheme allegedly employed by Mr. Maina was the biometric enrolment of pensioners across the states, which he demanded in order to sift out fake pensioners. But in most cases, it was alleged, no biometric exercise was conducted, instead contracts were awarded and the monies routed back to Mr. Maina.
The first biometric contract that got Messrs Maina and Oronsaye into trouble was awarded in June 2010 to Innovative Solutions, a company introduced to the office of the Head of Service by Mr. Afe, a respondent in the case. The contract was worth N63, 375,000 (sixty three million, three hundred and seventy five thousand naira).
Although many things were wrong with the process of bidding for this contract, Oronsaye approved it and the contract sum was paid to the contractor. It was later discovered that the said job was carried out at the sum of N35 million by Uptrach Communications Limited and not Innovative Solutions.
The chief executive officer of Innovative Solutions confessed under interrogation that Uptrach Communications did the job for N35 million and that it was Mr. Afe who instructed him to work with the company and Fredrick Hamilton, which he (Afe) owns.
Afe told investigators that the remaining N28 million was split between Maina, Otepola (Oronsaye’s Special Assistant), another director in the office of the Head of Service, Karamot Lawal and himself.
But that is just the tip of the iceberg for what would later become a looting spree. After the initial biometric enrolment exercise, Innovative Solutions requested for an extension of the exercise and therefore demanded the payment of extra N136 million. Mr. Afe later confessed that he was instructed by Mr. Maina to ask the company to seek the extension of the exercise for that amount, bringing the total cost of the biometric enrolment contract to N199 million.
However, investigators discovered that the second contract for N136 was never awarded but was a scheme to siphon money. Moreover, rather than being paid a total of N199, Innovative Solutions ended up being paid N224 million, with an excess of N25 million. In all, the company fraudulently received a total of N161.4 million.
According to Mr. Afe, the scheme to illegally pay N161.4 million to Innovative Solutions was orchestrated by Mr. Maina who also ended up being the sole beneficiary of that monumental fraud.
According to statements made by Mr. Afe, Innovative Solutions paid his own company, Fredrick Hamilton, a total of N155, 147,000 from the N161.4 million it received.
“After the exercise, Innovative Solutions Limited transferred the sum of 155.147 million to my Fredrick Hamilton account. I handed these funds over to Mr Maina.
“I wrote blank cheques to disburse the funds in the presence of my Oceanic Bank account officer (name withheld) on 8 July 2010,” he further stated.
Apart from this, Fredrick Hamilton also got paid another N119 million ostensibly for executing a biometric enrolment contract. Yet, there is no existing documentation regarding this contract for which payment was made.
However, in his statement, Mr. Afe, the owner of the company claimed that N35 million of the amount was payment for his project management consultancy job and that the balance was paid entirely in cash to Mr. Maina.
“The difference made here was at the instruction of Mr Maina and the funds were given to him in cash at my bank, Oceanic Bank, NAOWA Complex branch, Abuja,” Afe said.
However, investigators believe Mr. Afe lied about earning N35 million since no such contract was ever awarded, insisting that the entire N119 million was deliberately illegally siphoned.
In all, it was discovered that MR. Afe’s company, Fredrick Hamilton had illegally received payments totalling N280.05 million. In his statement to the EFCC, he claimed that he paid over N250 million to Maina.
The EFCC also alleges that Mr. Maina used other people and companies to siphon funds from the pension accounts of the Pension Office at the Head of Service.
One of the persons Mr. Maina allegedly used was Mr. Adesokan, who worked with him while he was director of CIIPO.
Mr. Adesokan used his company, Fatidek Ventures, to obtain bogus biometric enrolment and file jacket supply contracts totalling more than N30 million from the Head of Service’s Pension Office. But it was a ruse. There was no contract at all.
Mr. Adesokan confessed under interrogation that the N30, 056,000 obtained by Fatidek Ventures for the bogus supply contract was paid to Igwe, Mr. Maina’s secretary.
Mr. Adesokan also confessed using other companies to obtain other bogus contracts from the Pension Office.
According to him, these include, Jolance Integrated Concepts and Obalando, both owned by his friends.
“Jolance was awarded feeding contract to the tune of N20,000,000 but actually the company was not the one that provided feeding during the exercise,” he stated.
He further stated that the N20 million was also handed over to Anne Igwe as verbally directed by Abdulrasheed Maina.
Obalando, the other company used by Adesokan, got three bogus biometric enrolment contracts for N52,600,000, N9,925,400 and N32,240,000, all totalling N96,765,400. The entire sum, Adesokan said he was instructed to withdraw and hand over to Mr. Igwe by Mr. Maina, which he did.
Another civil servant used in siphoning money from pension accounts at the office of the Head of Service was Bonat’s secretary, Kate Chinwe Obiekwe, who was personally paid N56 million in the name of collective allowance and biometric enrolment. She claimed that most of the money was withdrawn by her and paid to the secretary of the Task Team, Ibrahim Abdulkareem, whom she said in turn handed it over to Mr. Igwe, Mr. Maina’s secretary.
Ms. Obiekwe added that Abdulkareem also asked her to provide her company’s account details to receive payments for biometric enrolment contracts. She provided her company, Vivian Ebony’s account details, and the company got N16, 786,000 but Ms. Obiekwe claimed that she also withdrew and handed over the money to Mr. Abdulkareem. For her services, she claimed to have been paid the sum of N50, 000. Other than payments for biometric enrolment, another avenue that was allegedly used by Mr. Maina to siphon money from the pension funds was what was known as collective allowance.
These are allowances due to civil servants on official assignment outside Abuja with the voucher raised in one person’s name. It is alleged that names of staff of the Pension Office were drawn up as due for collective allowance for which monies running into several millions of naira were illegally paid out. But in truth, no official ever travelled rather it was a scheme designed to siphon money from the pension funds.
The names of several officials of the Task Team headed by Mr. Maina and other civil servants in the office of the Head of Service were used to siphon money this way.
Part of the N50 million paid to Ms. Obiekwe was received as collective allowance. In all, she must have received about N15 million into her personal account. She confessed that the money was not used for paying collective allowance to officials on duty outside Abuja rather was expended on such things as purchasing “office consumables,” “running the office”, helping staff and old pensioners return back home after coming to Abuja to pursue their pension and so on.
Mr. Abdulkareem was also discovered to have received a total of N80 million as collective allowance from the pension funds, while another staff of the Pension Reform Task Team, Mohammed Abdullahi, also allegedly collected more than N20 million for the same purpose.
When EFCC investigators confronted him with the allegations against him, Mr. Oronsaye denied all of them. First, he said that he was not the accounting officer of the pension office, insisting that Mr. Bonat held that responsibility.
Mr. Oronsaye also denied knowledge of about N500 million and another $2 million being held in trust for him as alleged by Ms. Chidi.
“I am told that $2 million and about N500 million are being held in trust for me by Mrs Chidi to be delivered to me at a later date. This is news to me. I could never be part of this,” Oronsaye stated, adding that he had never collected any money from her.
Regarding the illegal payment of N224 million to Innovative Solutions for a N63 million contract, the former Head of Service said he was advised on the importance of the biometric exercise by Afe, adding that the contract went through the tenders board, although he could not recollect if it was advertised as required by procurement laws.
Ms. Oronsaye denied knowledge of the N136 million contract for the extension of the biometric exercise and the other contract for the sum of N119 paid to Fredrick Hamilton, Afe’s company.
In Mr. Maina’s case, our reporter was able to reach him through his cell phone at his base in Dubai, where he has lived for about two years now. He denied any wrong doing while in office as chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, insisting that there was an agenda to tarnish his record as the man who saved more than N282 billion that would have been stolen.
He denied collecting monies from Mr. Afe, who alleged that he gave him more than N250 million.
“You say somebody said he gave 15 blank cheques to me. So, how did I cash them? Can’t they go to the bank and find out? Come on,” he said. When told that one of the contractors alleged that he issued him blank cheques to collect N119 million.
Mr. Maina insisted that it was because the EFCC had found no evidence against him that they failed to list him as one of the respondents in the case.
He also pointed out that the EFCC had not been fair to him as the Commission never invited him concerning any of the allegations levelled against him. When he was told that the anti-graft agency had informed our reporter that it had invited him through Ms. Igwe, his secretary, he said that only showed the agency was up to some tricks.
“How can they invite me through Anne. Don’t they know my house? Is Anne my mother? Am I in the civil service? Is Anne still my secretary?” he queried.
“How can they say I absconded? Did they invite me? They never invited me.”
Mr. Maina insisted that anytime money was collected for biometrics, it was judiciously used, noting that even officials of the EFCC travelled for the exercise and received payments due to them.
He also wondered how the EFCC would turn round and charge him of stealing from the pension funds when he blew the whistle on all those that are now being tried, observing that his team and the EFCC worked together in unravelling the rot in the pension administration at the office of the Head of Service and the Police Pension Office. The former Task Team chairman said that he had nothing to fear and that he was returning to Nigeria soon and would therefore be waiting for the investigators.
For many Nigerians who have followed the unearthing of the corruption that characterised pension funds administration in the country, the allegations must come as a rude shock. And the irony of the situation would also not be lost on them.
It was, indeed, Mr. Oronsaye who in 2010 set up the Pension Reform Task Team and invited Maina, then head of CIIPO, to cleanse the Pension Office in the office of the HOSC
In his statement to the EFCC, Mr. Oronsaye said he set up the task team to reform the pension system “as a result of the many pensioners who clustered around the office of Head of Service saying they had not received their entitlements.
Mr. Maina rose to prominence as an anti-corruption czar when he uncovered the massive looting of pensioners’ funds first in the HOSF’s office and later at the Police Pension Office, PPO.
The disclosure by the Maina – led Task Team uncovered the looting of some N40 billion at the HOSF’s office and led to the prosecution of Messrs Shaibu, Chidi and 30 other persons slammed with a 134-count charge of conspiracy, fraud and corruption.
(Read our report on that monumental fraud here)
Also, at the Police Pension Office, the task team discovered another N20 billion fraud perpetrated by top civil servants and their aides.
In that case, investigations showed that between 2008 and June 2011, the civil servants, in the name of the director of the Police Pension Office, illegally withdrew a total of N18.1 billion from Police pension funds using some 13,874 check leaflets.
They did not even bother to disguise their criminal activities by awarding contracts or making payments to ghost pensioners as others did instead just wrote cheques payable to the director in the pension office.
Those who were arrested and are being prosecuted include Abubakar Kigo, former director, PPO, who retired as a permanent secretary in the ministry of Niger Delta; Esias Dangabar a retired director, PPO; Ahmed Wada, former deputy director, PPO, and Abdullahi Umar, deputy director, Ministry of Works. Others are John Yusuf, an accountant and a lady named Vicky, a cashier, both of whom worked in the PPO.
(Read details of our report published on February 27, 2012 here)
In all, the Task Team is also said to have saved the nation about N282 billion which would have been stolen by the pension thieves.
Mr. Maina is now being accused of borrowing the looting template employed by the pension looters, through bogus or inflated contracts, brazen issuance of cheques to persons for jobs not done and in the name of collective allowances.
These were the same methods unearthed by Maina as having been used by Shaibu and others to loot pension funds.
When the former Task Team chairman spoke to our reporter on the phone on August 2, he said that he was ready to defend himself and indicated that he would be returning to Nigeria the following week. But three weeks later, at the time of filing this report, he still had not returned home.
This report was first published by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. We have their permission to republish here.
http://www.premiumtimesng.com/

Tuesday 25 August 2015

Buhari Terminates Oil Swap Agreements

Reps urge Buhari to constitute NCPP Board
”Your prayer 5 above approved – PMB”
With those words, President Muhammadu Buhari on 13th August cancelled the controversial offshore processing and oil swap deals initiated in January this year by the outgone administration of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
The agreement was earlier billed to last till December 2016.
President Buhari’s approval is in a bid by the new leadership of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to ensure transparency and due process.
In a memo to the President on August 12, the NNPC sought approval to terminate all such current contracts following a presidential directive.
“This memo purports to seek Mr President’s approval to terminate all current Offshore Processing and SWAP contracts and commence a fresh re-tendering process to ensure transparency, due process and optimized contract terms in favour of the NNPC,” stated the letter signed by Ibe Kachikwu, the Group Managing Director of NNPC.
Responding, the president approved the request in a memo dated August 13 and signed by the Permanent Secretary of the State House, Nebolisa Emodi.
The NNPC currently swaps a part of its allotted 445,000 barrels of crude per day to some oil companies and in return receives refined products.
Oil swap derives from the fact that Nigeria’s four refineries operate mostly below 50% installed capacity and since 2003, the NNPC has continued to allocate them 445,000 barrels of crude oil per day, which corresponds to 100% capacity. The oil swaps have come under criticism following allegations that they have been opaque and the government has been short-changed in the deals.
In its audit between 2009 and 2012, the Nigerian Extractive Transparency Initiative (NEITI) revealed that crude oil swap arrangements are not cost- effective, especially when compared to product prices and proceeds paid to the NNPC.
The audit exposed under-delivery of products by companies awarded such swap contracts to the tune of $866.189 million, and that this comprises Refined Products Exchange Arrangement of $500.075 million and Offshore Processing Arrangement of $366.114 million.
Civil society groups had repeatedly called for an end to the oil swap deals while also urging the Nigerian government to allocate to local refineries crude product based on operating capacity and the difference should be sold directly as crude.
The Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) had in an advocacy position paper sent to the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) called on the National Assembly to do all in its powers to end oil swaps in Nigeria.
The House has, however, failed to progress on a motion moved in June by Michael Enyong (Akwa Ibom) seeking an “urgent need for a forensic investigation of the contracts known as Refined Product Exchange Agreement or Swap Contract.” The lawmaker had alleged that Nigeria has lost considerable revenue due to leakages in the accounting system and mismanagement of the economy.
“There is the need to ensure transparency and accountability by the NNPC in the management of revenue accruing to the nation from crude oil, particularly in the prevailing circumstances where major buyers of Nigeria’s crude oil such as the United States has discovered alternative sources,” he said.
With the presidential approval, the NNPC is expected to formally trigger the exit clauses in the current OPA contracts in order to close them and commence a fresh re-tendering process aimed at getting more favourable deals for the government.
http://dailytimes.com.ng/

Thursday 20 August 2015

BREAKING: Buhari sacks Head of Nigeria’s Budget Office, Bright Okogu

Bright-Okogu
President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday removed the Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Bright Okogu, from office.
The reason for his removal remains unclear at press time.
In his place, Yahaya Gusau, whose details remains unknown at this time, has been appointed his successor. Details about Mr. Gusau
Until his appointment in December 2007, Mr. Okogu held several top positions, including Senior Economist, International Monetary Fund, IMF, in Washington DC; Senior Operations Officer at the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, Fund and Market Analyst, OPEC Secretariat in Vienna, Austria.
He served as Special Adviser to the Minister of Finance (2004 to 2007) and also the pioneer Executive Secretary of Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
Although he worked to deepen openness and transparency about the Nigerian budget for years, Mr. Okogu will also be remembered for failing to make details of the 2015 budget public several months after the budget proposal was presented to the National Assembly.
Journalists and analysts also told this newspaper at the time they were denied the details, amid speculations the government deliberately refused to publish them online or in hard copies as done in past years, to avoid embarrassing reports and analyses.
http://www.premiumtimesng.com/

BREAKING: Buhari sacks Head of Nigeria’s Budget Office, Bright Okogu

Bright-Okogu
President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday removed the Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Bright Okogu, from office.
The reason for his removal remains unclear at press time.
In his place, Yahaya Gusau, whose details remains unknown at this time, has been appointed his successor. Details about Mr. Gusau
Until his appointment in December 2007, Mr. Okogu held several top positions, including Senior Economist, International Monetary Fund, IMF, in Washington DC; Senior Operations Officer at the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, Fund and Market Analyst, OPEC Secretariat in Vienna, Austria.
He served as Special Adviser to the Minister of Finance (2004 to 2007) and also the pioneer Executive Secretary of Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
Although he worked to deepen openness and transparency about the Nigerian budget for years, Mr. Okogu will also be remembered for failing to make details of the 2015 budget public several months after the budget proposal was presented to the National Assembly.
Journalists and analysts also told this newspaper at the time they were denied the details, amid speculations the government deliberately refused to publish them online or in hard copies as done in past years, to avoid embarrassing reports and analyses.
http://www.premiumtimesng.com/

BREAKING: Buhari sacks Head of Nigeria’s Budget Office, Bright Okogu

Bright-Okogu
President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday removed the Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Bright Okogu, from office.
The reason for his removal remains unclear at press time.
In his place, Yahaya Gusau, whose details remains unknown at this time, has been appointed his successor. Details about Mr. Gusau
Until his appointment in December 2007, Mr. Okogu held several top positions, including Senior Economist, International Monetary Fund, IMF, in Washington DC; Senior Operations Officer at the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, Fund and Market Analyst, OPEC Secretariat in Vienna, Austria.
He served as Special Adviser to the Minister of Finance (2004 to 2007) and also the pioneer Executive Secretary of Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
Although he worked to deepen openness and transparency about the Nigerian budget for years, Mr. Okogu will also be remembered for failing to make details of the 2015 budget public several months after the budget proposal was presented to the National Assembly.
Journalists and analysts also told this newspaper at the time they were denied the details, amid speculations the government deliberately refused to publish them online or in hard copies as done in past years, to avoid embarrassing reports and analyses.
http://www.premiumtimesng.com/

Monday 17 August 2015

161214F-NEITI-logo.jpg - 161214F-NEITI-logo.jpg
Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI)
  •  To give Sagay committee particulars of oil companies owing $7bn
Chineme Okafor in Abuja
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) on Sunday said that it will give the new Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, all institutional supports needed to recover a certain $11.6 billion revenue from the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) which NNPC allegedly failed to remit to the Federation Account.
Similarly, it indicated that it will present to the newly constituted presidential advisory committee against corruption particulars of oil and gas companies that are operating in Nigeria but still owing an outstanding $7 billion crude oil revenue to the country over the years as underpayments and under-assessments.
NEITI, which disclosed its delight with the ongoing restructuring at NNPC, said in a statement from its secretariat in Abuja that the constitution of the Prof. Itsay Sagay-led committee last week by President Muhammadu Buhari presents to it another opportunity to pursue the recovery of the fund, using such high level governmental framework.
The statement was signed by NEITI’s Director of Communication, Orji Ogbonnanya Orji, and it described the Sagay committee as a good platform for all the 21 anti-corruption agencies in the country which are coordinated by the Technical Unit on Governance and Anti-Corruption (TUGAR) under the chairmanship of NEITI to share information and offer informed advice based on experiences garnered over the years in the fight against corrupt practices in Nigeria.
It said in this regards that: “One important issue that NEITI will be bringing to the table if given opportunity is how the committee can assist the government to recover over $7 billion owed by oil companies.
“These disclosures are contained in NEITI audit reports as cases of under payments, under assessments arising from subjective interpretation of MoUs and tax laws. We have no doubt that our contributions will add value to the work of the committee.”
http://www.thisdaylive.com/

NEMA: More Fake IDPs Troop to Camps, as NHRC Expresses Concern

e55-NEMA-offical.jpg - e55-NEMA-offical.jpg
Iyobosa Uwugiaren in Abuja 
Amidst several appeals by humanitarian and civil society organisations to the Nigerian government to intervene in the huge challenges facing the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said on Sunday that the major challenge facing the agency in its work -- with respect to the displaced persons, is “knowing who is an IDP and who is not.’’
On its part, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said the security situation in the country had resulted in the displacement of millions of Nigerians, who now take refuge in inhabitable environments with serious threat to their mental and physical existence.
The two federal government’s agencies noted these points after a meeting at the weekend in Abuja to deliberate on the challenges facing the IDPs in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and other parts of the country.
The Senior Special Assistant to the Executive Secretary to the NHRC, Mr. Lambert Oparah, stated yesterday that the meeting was sequel to a letter of urgent national importance by his boss, Professor Bem Angwe, requesting NEMA to intervene in a matter affecting IDPs in the country, especially in Abuja.
According to Oparah, “NEMA Director-General, Muhammadu Sanni, who led the officials from NEMA, disclosed that a major challenge facing the agency in its work with respect to displaced persons is knowing who is an IDP and who is not.
“According to him, many people now troop to camps or find settlements in unoccupied areas in the name of IDPs with intent to get relief materials or attract sympathisers. However, he stressed that NEMA has set up camps in all the conflict areas, which he said have been receiving adequate attention from agency officials.’’
The NEMA’s boss was also quoted as saying that the humanitarian outlook of Nigeria is made more complex by frequent communal clashes, especially between pastoralists and farmers, which has displaced so many Nigerians from their comfort homes.
Meanwhile, the Executive Secretary of NHRC has said that security must be balanced with human rights, calling for an urgent need for a stakeholders’ forum to address the IDPs issues in the country.
He said it was in an attempt to address some of the issues arising from IDPs camps that his agency in collaboration with the United Nation High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) deployed 310 monitors in the north-east and north-central parts of the country to observe the human rights situation in those camps.
However, THISDAY gathered last night that a stakeholders’ meeting would be convened on Wednesday in Abuja, to address some of the identified issues.
http://www.thisdaylive.com/