$63BN FRAUD: Senate begins probe of banks, oil companies

The Senate has commenced investigations of some banks over alleged collusion with International Oil Companies (IOCs) to defraud the country.

Over $62,909,716,417 billion is said to have been taken out of the country under suspicious circumstances between August 2009 and December 2014 alone.‎ The “Investigation of the pre-shipment inspection of export activities in Nigeria” is being conducted by the Senate joint committee on Finance, Trade and Investment, Gas, Petroleum Upstream, Banking, insurance and other Financial Institutions, Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, and Customs and Excise.

A document obtained by Ripples Nigeria showed that affected banks were asked to submit all copies of certified Nigeria Export Proceed (NXP) issued/or processed by them in respect of all crude oil and gas exported by Nigeria Agip Company ltd, Chevron Nigerian Limited, Shell Petroleum Dev. Co. Nig. Ltd and their affiliates between April 1996 to December, 2016.

The affected banks were also asked to submit all domiciliary accounts opened and /or closed within the period specified for all crude oil and gas exported. Two banks, Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank appeared before the investigative joint committee on Thursday while other banks said to be associated with the export of oil and gas will also appear.

A member of the committee, Senator Yusuf Yusuf (Taraba State) wanted to know why funds brought into the country as oil export proceeds are wholly withdrawn a day after such proceeds were brought into the country.

He said that the probe became necessary because the banks have the obligation under the law to ensure that petroleum products exporters do the right thing by obeying the guidelines and laws of the country.

Yusuf said: “It is worrisome that money comes in today, tomorrow the same amount goes out of the country. The practice runs through statement of account submitted by the banks. The oil companies bring in $20 billion today, tomorrow $20 billion is taken out from the account.

“The banks are colluding with multi-national oil companies to defraud the country. The government relies on the banks, the banks are now colluding with the multi-national oil companies.”

He noted that it is obvious that the country is not getting the correct export proceeds from oil and gas exports. The lawmaker who insisted that banks have the responsibility to abide by the law said that it is equally worrisome that no indications are made about who pays for oil exports.

He noted that the committee is interested to know why the same oil company that exports products is the same company that pays for it without indication of who actually buys the products and the corresponding bank.

Chairman of the joint committee, Senator John Enoh, said that the committee is also interested to ensure that banks are not colluding with IOCs to flout the laws of the country.

Enoh said that the committee would take a critical look at the submissions made by the banks to come to terms with the true position of oil and gas exports proceeds processes.

The document submitted to the committee obtained by our reporter showed that Citibank Nigeria operates domiciliary export proceed accounts for ENI Group (3 accounts), Chevron Group (6 accounts) and Shell Group (2 accounts).

The document also shows that Nigerian Agip Oil Company recorded a total export inflow valued at $15,372, 882,703.36. Chevron Group recorded a total inflow valued at $44,020,596,289.99 while Shell group made a total inflow valued at $3,516,237,425.79 giving total of $62,909,716,417 billion.

The Committee resolved to go through documents submitted by the banks before coming up with its recommendations. The committee expressed its determination to get to the root of pre-shipment inspection of export activities in the country.

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