Politics News

Reps probe 24 banks, others over $30bn revenue loss

The House of Representatives joint Committee on Finance and Banking and Currency is set to grill officials of 24 commercial banks  and 14 International Oil Companies (IOCs)  over alleged loss of $30 billion revenue due to leakages, during an investigative hearing scheduled to commence today.

Documents obtained, yesterday, indicated that the banks and IOCs are expected to explain to the joint committee , chaired by James Faleke and Victor Nwokolo,  the role of their  organisations  in the alleged revenue leakages,  especially as it concerns    interest payment on account of foreign currency dominated contracts by companies in engineering, procurement, construction, installation and marine transportations.

According to the document,  the investigative hearing would  be conducted in phases, to enable the joint committee comply with extant  COVID -19 protocol.

The House had in  March mandated  the joint  committee to investigate the alleged $30 billion annual revenue leakages arising  from  foreign exchange allocation to companies from sources such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), interbank, domiciliary and over the counter purchases for importation of physical goods, payments of foreign service vendors, dividend repatriation and foreign loans.

The Committee is expected to determine the level of culpability of  each organisation in the alleged revenue loss  “based on every revenue line item collectible by government agencies for the purpose of timely recovery into government accounts.”

The document listed  IOCs  expected  to appear before the committee as: Nigeria Agip Exploration (NAE), Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC), PAN Ocean Oil Nigeria Limited, Shell Nigeria Exploration & Producing Company Limited, Esso Exploration & Producing Nigeria Limited and Mobile Producing Nigeria Limited.

Others are Statoil Company Limited, Shell Petroleum Development Company, Star Deep Water Petroleum Nigeria Limited and Total E&P Nigeria Limited, Total Upstream Nigeria Limited, Sterling Oil Exploration Energy Limited, Addax Petroleum Development Company Limited and Addax Exploration Limited.

The joint committee had last week threaten to issue arrest warrant against the chief executives of the companies,  alongside heads of government parastatals, if they fail to furnish it with relevant information this week.

 

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