A probe into stolen crude oil initiated by the Goodluck Jonathan administration has uncovered some scandalous revelations, according to investigations.
The investigations led by the National Assembly, the Office of the Attorney General and US-based consultants have uncovered a total of 1.492 billion barrels of crude oil stolen by unnamed Nigerian saboteurs in conjunction with their foreign enablers.
Over $15.8 billion has been traced in connection to the stolen crude with $15 billion traced to the United States, $3 billion traced to China and over $850 million located in Norway.
According to Hon Agbonayinma, former President Goodluck Jonathan contracted an auditing firm to probe what went wrong and he gave a brief synopsis of the report.
He gave the breakdown that the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, and other agencies were indicted in the report.
The company was contracted in 2013 by the administration of President Jonathan to proffer solutions to the challenges of crude oil theft. Agbonayinma, in the motion, recalled that Molecular Power System was engaged to provide technical data (records of crude oil and liquefied natural gas lifting in Nigeria as obtained from the NNPC, and landing certificates at global destinations) to verify possibilities of non-declaration to the federal government by multinational companies.
“The data gathering of shipment to the USA for the period 2011 to December 2014 through critical NNPC data and the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, pre-shipment inspection report shows undeclared crude oil shortfalls of 57,830,000 MT of Nigerian crude oil, translating to well over $12 billion to the USA, also over $3billion to China, and $839,522,600 to Norway,” he said.
These were conclusively ascertained by buyers’ bill of lading, arrival dates, destination ports, the quantity of crude oil and other documented information, Agbonayinma said.
Source: Vanguard