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Senator justifies takeover of NNPC’s forensic audit

By BusinessNews Staff on February 20, 2014

The Vice-Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior, Senator Olubunmi Adetunmbi, on Tuesday, justified the decision of the upper legislative chamber to take over the forensic audit of the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation due to the non-remittance of $20bn oil sales proceeds into the Federation Account.

Adetunmbi, an All Progressives Congress member from Ekiti State, said in Abuja that the audit would be better carried out by the National Assembly as against the one to be supervised by the Ministry of Finance, which had yet to extricate itself from the allegations of fraud currently rocking the nation’s petroleum sector.

He said carrying out the forensic audit by auditors appointed by the ministry would not augur well for issues of accountability, transparency and credibility.

The lawmaker said past actions of the finance ministry had created doubts in the minds of the public on whether it could be trusted to handle the audit and whether it would be an unbiased arbiter in a controversy that had already cast severe doubts on its credibility.

Adetunmbi said, “Now, we are talking of another forensic audit. No one should be hoodwinked about this attempt to feed the thirst of the public for breaking the news of scandals, which die naturally a few weeks after their unveiling.

“Given the past experience, there seems to be an unholy alliance between the Ministry of Finance and the NNPC to conceal embarrassing discrepancies in the revenues of the federation. I don’t think the public trusts the ministry to carry out this forensic audit.

“This audit should emanate directly from the Senate. Sections 88 and 89 of the constitution grants the power of investigation to the parliament and it does not need to cede this responsibility to the minister of finance, who incidentally in this scenario, is also a party to be investigated in the case of the unremitted funds.”

[Punch]

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