THE Federal Government has put the money fraudulently paid to marketers in the oil subsidy scam at N232.2 billion.
Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, made the disclosure on Monday in Abuja at a press conference held on the ways of reinvigorating the country’s ailing capital market.
According to the minister, following the submission of the report of the Presidential Committee on the Verification and Reconciliation of Fuel Subsidy Payments headed by Access Bank boss, Aigboje Aig-Imokhuede, out of the N1trillion claims verified, it was established that the sum of N232.2billion was paid to fraudulent oil marketers.
Noting that N29billion due to the fraudulent marketers was held back by the government, the minister said the government would begin the payment of genuine claims starting from December with a view to averting man-made fuel queues which have been on since the issue of payments to oil marketers cropped up within the petroleum industry
The president had on Thursday, July 5, 2012 constituted the committee with a charge to verify the recommendations of a technical committee earlier set up by the Ministry of Finance on the management of the fuel subsidy regime.
The committee, while submitting its report to President Goodluck Jonathan, made several stringent recommendations among which are the recovery of all stolen funds and the ‘criminal prosecution’ of 21 Oil Marketers and Traders (OMTs).
According to the chairman of the committee who summarised the report, there were 116 oil marketing and trading companies that participated in the petroleum subsidy scheme in the period under review.
“The Presidential Committee invited all 116 for interviews, 107 OMT honoured the invitation, they were interviewed by various panels constituted by the committee and the outcome of these interviews are also captured in the report.”
He said painstaking efforts were made to ensure fairness, while oil marketers were given the opportunity to come back with as much documentation and even be reinterviewed where necessary.
He noted that the committee had recommended 21 oil marketers for prosecution.
“We have six categories of issues, likely fraudulent cases for criminal investigation-you have 21 oil marketers affected. We have short-time certificate issues, you have a number of oil marketers involved in irregular payments and so on,” he stated.
Summarising the 22 recommendations made by the Committee, Aig-Imokhuede said: “The first is the recovery of the said amount.
“The next is possible criminal investigation and prosecution of the OMTs that are found to have engaged in likely fraudulent issues.”
According to him, the external auditors and any government functionary suspected of aiding and abetting any crime will be further interviewed to determine the roles if any, in the issues that were discussed.
He continued: “We also recognise the need for the accelerated implementation of all the recommendations in the Technical Committee report.
“Finally, our recommendation is that for the nation to keep putting together teams of technocrats to pursue those who abuse a subsidy regime is not sustainable.
The lasting and final solution to ensure that this kind of things does not occur again is for the deregulation of fuel subsidy.”
Asked to speak further on the recommended modalities for fund recovery, Imokuede said: “There are a number of options. The first is to determine whether you have some of the subsidy payments due still within the banking system in the possession of those who illegally collected them.
“There are other powers that the Federal Government has with respect to transactions that are ongoing and claims that such people may have for additional fuel subsidies-that is another source of recovery.”
The committee he said, also looked at one or two interesting enabling laws that allow the Federal Government take certain steps about recovery which he failed to disclose specifically.
Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, made the disclosure on Monday in Abuja at a press conference held on the ways of reinvigorating the country’s ailing capital market.
According to the minister, following the submission of the report of the Presidential Committee on the Verification and Reconciliation of Fuel Subsidy Payments headed by Access Bank boss, Aigboje Aig-Imokhuede, out of the N1trillion claims verified, it was established that the sum of N232.2billion was paid to fraudulent oil marketers.
Noting that N29billion due to the fraudulent marketers was held back by the government, the minister said the government would begin the payment of genuine claims starting from December with a view to averting man-made fuel queues which have been on since the issue of payments to oil marketers cropped up within the petroleum industry
The president had on Thursday, July 5, 2012 constituted the committee with a charge to verify the recommendations of a technical committee earlier set up by the Ministry of Finance on the management of the fuel subsidy regime.
The committee, while submitting its report to President Goodluck Jonathan, made several stringent recommendations among which are the recovery of all stolen funds and the ‘criminal prosecution’ of 21 Oil Marketers and Traders (OMTs).
According to the chairman of the committee who summarised the report, there were 116 oil marketing and trading companies that participated in the petroleum subsidy scheme in the period under review.
“The Presidential Committee invited all 116 for interviews, 107 OMT honoured the invitation, they were interviewed by various panels constituted by the committee and the outcome of these interviews are also captured in the report.”
He said painstaking efforts were made to ensure fairness, while oil marketers were given the opportunity to come back with as much documentation and even be reinterviewed where necessary.
He noted that the committee had recommended 21 oil marketers for prosecution.
“We have six categories of issues, likely fraudulent cases for criminal investigation-you have 21 oil marketers affected. We have short-time certificate issues, you have a number of oil marketers involved in irregular payments and so on,” he stated.
Summarising the 22 recommendations made by the Committee, Aig-Imokhuede said: “The first is the recovery of the said amount.
“The next is possible criminal investigation and prosecution of the OMTs that are found to have engaged in likely fraudulent issues.”
According to him, the external auditors and any government functionary suspected of aiding and abetting any crime will be further interviewed to determine the roles if any, in the issues that were discussed.
He continued: “We also recognise the need for the accelerated implementation of all the recommendations in the Technical Committee report.
“Finally, our recommendation is that for the nation to keep putting together teams of technocrats to pursue those who abuse a subsidy regime is not sustainable.
The lasting and final solution to ensure that this kind of things does not occur again is for the deregulation of fuel subsidy.”
Asked to speak further on the recommended modalities for fund recovery, Imokuede said: “There are a number of options. The first is to determine whether you have some of the subsidy payments due still within the banking system in the possession of those who illegally collected them.
“There are other powers that the Federal Government has with respect to transactions that are ongoing and claims that such people may have for additional fuel subsidies-that is another source of recovery.”
The committee he said, also looked at one or two interesting enabling laws that allow the Federal Government take certain steps about recovery which he failed to disclose specifically.
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