Senator Bukola Saraki, Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee of Finance has stated that the committee has not cleared Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Madueke or the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of any culpability in funds missing or misappropriated in the sector.
Speaking through his spokesman, Bankole Omishore, Saraki said, “Though I could not attend the last meeting of the committee, I have been very active in the investigation, nothing significant has changed to suggest clearing anybody.
“I can say on behalf of the committee that these media reports bear no correlation to the content of the Senate Committee report and I would urge the public to disregard it in its entirety.
“The committee is yet to receive the report on the forensic audit and independent analysis on the subject clearly indicates we have a lot of grounds to cover in order to determine the level of culpability or otherwise of the agency on the alleged non-committal.
“Therefore, to suggest any clearance for anybody at this stage is out of the question. I will further advise that the media should wait for the Senate to release the details of the committee report to the public before they jump into spurious conclusions.”
Earlier this week, the committee led by Senator Ahmed Makarfi said that allegations made by Mallam Lamido Sanusi that $49.8 billion was missing from the Federation Account was untrue.
The report said, “the committee could not see how the figure of $49.8 billion was arrived at by the CBN Governor in the first instance.
“That the CBN Governor at the first hearing had forwarded the figure of $12 billion as monies to be reconciled and changed his position to $20 billion at subsequent hearing.
“At the conclusion of his written submission, Sanusi posited that it could be $20 billion, $12 billion, $10.8n billion or anything in between.”