Nigeria - Group vows to recover missing N5b oil windfall

A coalition of civil society organisations, Publish What You pay (PWYP), has promised to recover the N5 billion allegedly missing from some banks from 1999 to 2005.

An audit by the Nigerian Extractive Industries Initiatives (NEITI) between 1999 and 2004 revealed that the amount covered was taxes and royalties from the oil and gas companies paid into some banks.

The group called for the disclosure of the payments to governments. It urged the governments to publish its revenues from these sectors to enable people to know what went wrong.

Speaking with The Nation during a two-day oil and gas revenue tracking training in Lagos, organised by NEITI, with support from the USAID Nigeria, the group’s National Executive Chairperson, Mrs. Faith Nwadishi, stressed the need for transparency and accountability by public office holders.

She noted that the disappearance of the money was not only fradulent, but also a high level of irresponsibility.
“It is irresponsibility. The fact is that there was supposed to be somebody who was in charge of that money. There was supposed to be somebody who was responsible for the collection of that money. The person must have been careless, that was why that amount of money could not be reconciled or be found anywhere,” she said.

The association said it had contacted relevant bodies and institutions concerned with the disbursement of the country’s finances, including the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Ministry of Finance on the missing money.