Oil Subsidy Swindlers Are Walking Away

The Customs are supposed to inspect all incoming cargoes. We all know the customs. Not much was expected from them. People ‘fly’ in containers daily in Lagos, so getting documents signed without verification cannot be strange. That is what clearing and forwarding agents do here.

Corruption reigns supreme in the everywhere. Customs are not left out. Bribe is the grease that lubricates the rickety dysfunctional bureaucracy of government departments. Customs are not different. No customs official was implicated. None could have been.

At the presidential committee hearings, the Customs complained about the huge sums they are owed by the NNPC.

DID THEY ENGAGE THE NAVY?

The Navy is charged with protecting the territorial integrity of the country on the seas. They are supposed to clear all incoming vessels. Without a naval clearance the subsidy payment of the trader\ marketer cannot be processed. So all instances where marketers made fictitious claims of having received products from vessels that were elsewhere at the time they were supposed to be around the country or from vessels that have never existed or that had been de commissioned, did our authorities engage the Navy in monitoring these things?

Instances of back loading and instances where vessels berthed and moved out with products but got their papers duly signed spoke of collusion in the scam. Navy has intelligence officers around the jetties, so they should know a few things. Did they engage them if they meant well for Nigeria? And if they did what happened?

We do not know if naval officer was indicted. Was any charged?

But one must wonder why the Navy did not conduct internal inquiry and did not seek to purge itself of such contaminated officers whose level of wealth cannot further service discipline.

The Federal Ministry of Finance And Their External Inspectors

The federal ministry of finance watched all of these happen. The minister had served under Obasanjo and was well acquainted with the subsidy programme. Granted she always canvassed for its abrogation but how did she let this happen under her watch? She was reported to have defended the high subsidy figures which she attributed to growth. A fourfold rise in subsidy in 18 months? She has left with her reputation in tact. She was not directly involved in the scam but she was definitely derelict of her duties. At the very least , moral duties.

The external firms engaged by the federal ministry as auditors of the process lacked the requisite knowledge to handle the transactions. But it is strange that while they collected 250,000 naira per vessel they failed to stem the decay. They were supposed to witness vessel arrivals and verify quality of product imported. But we now know better. Vessels that have longed been buried supposedly brought cargoes to Nigeria and subsidies were paid for such ghost cargoes. The two external auditing firms were disengaged after the inquiries.

Tragically a whooping 121 billion was paid out as subsidy without the approval of external auditors.

NNPC – A self regulating behemoth.

The NNPC, the committees concluded, engaged in rogue funding of the PSF by illegal direct deduction from crude costs depleting unilaterally , recklessly and criminally, national distributable income. NNPC variously acted outside the contemplation of the law and the PSF scheme. And outside the bounds of probity and of decency.

The PPPRA gave all allocations for the importation of kerosene( HHK) to the NNPC. President Yaradua had ordered the discontinuation of kerosene subsidy. Without any authorization, without any new express presidential directive, perhaps besides winks, NNPC resumed the deductions from crude costs for kerosene subsidy in 2011. NNPC withdrew humongous amounts from source, in disregard for any appropriation bills , without recourse to any approvals. In many instances NNPCs imports were not even verified by the external auditors but NNPC had no use for that, it paid itself. Because NNPC paid itself and the states weren’t compelled to service the PSF in advance as required by the scheme, the states and the local governments were aloof. The CBN couldn’t possible see through all what the NNPC was engaged in. Once the NNPC had the guts to warn the CBN not to meddle into the fuel subsidy matter.

Marketers , ploys , stratagems, fake vessels and forged papers.

The presidential committee reported that over 400 billion naira may have been stolen. But much more was stolen. And so much has gone into the building of new private petroleum depots . Depots have sprouted in Satellite town and Kiri –Kiri in Lagos , Oghara, Calabar and Port Harcourt. Many of these emergency depots emerged since 2009 . And the owners participated in the subsidy scheme and were indicted by the committees. Many others own large residential estates in Abuja, Lagos and Portharcourt.

With the aid of Lloyds intelligence list all marketers who claimed to have delivered products using fictitious vessels were clearly found out. But many of them have not been charged and that in itself is inexplicable. One of such vessels is Mt Zhen star. Lloyds intelligence list says it has never existed yet sanctimonious fraudulent marketers in Nigeria submitted documents and claimed billions for products supposedly delivered by Mt Zhen Star . We will get to details of companies and individuals implicated in these transactions in another episode of this expose. Using Mt Zhen star unscrupulous marketers bled Nigeria of 3.9billion naira. And for some of these transactions no form ‘M’s exist.

Some others fell in love with the name Mt Hellenic blue, a vessel that was buried in February 2010 according to the Lloyds register. Perhaps her ghost brought fuel to the west African coast in 2011!

A total of 21billion naira was lost to marketers who claimed to have brought in products from mother vessels that were at some other locations in the far east as at the time they were supposed to be offloading their cargo in west Africa.

And unthinkably, some claims of marketers of having imported cargoes were disclaimed by their banks. The banks washed their hands of transactions but Nigeria lost about 12.154 billion naira to this category brazenness.

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