Politics
CBN, FIRS shun Reps 14 invites to explain missing $60.3bn
The House of Representatives has revealed that officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) have shunned 14 invitations extended to them.
They are being invited to shed light on a petition alleging, that about $60.3 billion Petroleum Profit Tax and Royalty revenues, which accrued to the country in 12 years is unaccounted for.
The invitation was extended to them by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions, which says it has resolved to conduct an investigative hearing into the missing funds.
A chartered accountant working with Synergy Resources Nigeria Limited, had told members of the committee, that “From 2004 to 2016, over $60 billion of PPTP and royalty revenues were unaccounted for by the CBN.”
He also said, “We discovered that something was going wrong and we approached the CBN to take actions to remedy those infractions but it remained adamant, probably that is how they benefit from the system,” the petitioner said.
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Chairman of the Committee, Uzoma Abonta (Abia, PDP), who wondered why the CBN and FIRS have failed to honour the committee’s invitations to explain the circumstances behind such a huge fund missing, also stated that the committee would go public with its findings.
“Because the CBN, FIRS and the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, have repeatedly failed to appear, the committee will be left with nothing than to deem it fit to work with materials before it.
“We will conduct a public hearing on the matter and we will compel them to appear because what we are trying to do is to have a situation where all the loopholes for leakages are blocked.
“The committee will make public its findings via newspaper publications, inviting all the stakeholders to a public hearing to tell Nigerians where the petroleum products tax profit is kept.
“The missing money is enough to fund our national budget and the apex bank and the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, must give us all the details,’’ he said.
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