The public sitting of the ad-hoc committee set up by the House of Representatives to investigate the spending of the oil subsidy money led by Honourable Farouk Lawan has become a forum for mindboggling revelations on how the tax payers’ money in Nigeria is wasted on frivolous things by those given by the people to take care of the money and spend it justifiably to improve the lives of the tax payers.
At the sitting since the past two weeks, there were contradictions on the actual amount spent on subsidy by government officials who should know. What Nigerians were made to believe prior to the public sitting of the committee was that N1.3 trillion was spent on oil subsidy last year. However, when the Minister of Finance and coordinating Minister of the country’s Economic Team, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala gave her testimony at the sitting she said the total amount spent was N1.4 trillion.
However, when the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke, gave her testimony towards the end of last week, she said that the actual amount spent was N1.7 trillion noting that what was given by Okonjo-Iweala was the money spent between January and October, 2011.
The committee chairman, Farouk Lawan was forced to acknowledge the fact that since the oil subsidy money continues to increase, members of the committee and Nigerians in general would not be surprised when another government official come and give another figure on what was spent on oil subsidy last year.
However, both Okonjo-Iweala and Allison-Madueke did not disagreed on one thing the amount of money spent between January and February 2011 on oil subsidy. Both agreed that N245 billion was disbursed as subsidy during the period according to their testimony before the House of Representatives committee. The astronomical subsidy deduction reached an all time high between February and June.
Investigation by The Premier revealed that President Goodluck Jonathan was hell bent on winning the 2011 presidential election and become the country’s substantive president haven been told by his kitchen cabinet that the Yar-Adua mandate he was operating does not give him full authority and responsibility.
Jonathan’s people also told him that he must first of all pick the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential ticket as a prelude to winning the election but they also told him of the formidable opposition coming from the North which seemed to have buried its differences by unanimously picking a consensus candidate in former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
Jonathan was told that the name of the game is money and the man from Utuoke in Bayelsa was ready to outspend every other contestant to achieve his aim.
On January 11 2011, about two days to the national convention of the ruling PDP where the party’s presidential flag bearer would be elected, a whopping N150 billion was withdrawn from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for what the government called ‘classified expenditure’.
Unknown to many, that ‘classified expenditure’ was the fast approaching PDP presidential primaries. The Jonathan loyalists have stumbled on the report that the Atiku camp is giving out US$3, 000, about N.4million then to each of the 3, 000 delegates expected at the national convention.
To outplay and outsmart Atiku, the Jonathan camp gave out US$7, 000 more than a million naira to each of the delegate in addition to paying each delegate N250, 000 for accommodation and transport. In all Jonathan spent N4.13 billion on the presidential primaries broken down to US$21 million (N3.381 billion) in hard currency for delegate and local currency of N750 million as allowance for transport and accommodation.
Having won the presidential primaries of the ruling party, the Jonathan camp felt there was need to pacify the north which is visibly angry that it has been denied the chance to rule Nigeria again. That was when the idea of a consultation tour of the north was muted. There commenced a tour and visitations to some prominent personalities and groups in the north which cost the presidential team N500 million at the end of January, 2011.
The month of February heralded a frenetic pace in the presidential campaign team activities. First, a fleet of private jets were hired from four private carriers: Kings Aviation, Wings Aviation, Top Brazz and Overland. In normal time, the jets are leased out at the rate of US$6, 000 per hour per jet. But the Nigeria election certainly should be treated as an unusual time hence the Jonathan team paid US$10, 000 per hour to each of the jets leased. What this translated to was that the presidential team paid N100 million naira daily to the leased jets and with the jets leased for a total of 70 hours, a whopping N10.5 billion belonging to Nigerian tax payers was paid to the operators of the leased jets.
On February 14th 2011, some prominent billionaires met at the Eko Hotels in Lagos and at the end of their meeting, the Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) was formed and given the mandate to raise more money to oil Jonathan’s campaign. Present at the meeting were billionaires like: Femi Otedola, Jimoh Ibrahim, Sayyu Dantata, Tony Elumelu, Emeka Offor and Kasim Bukar among others.
The formation and mandate given to the PCC led to the crazy oil subsidy money paid out by the federal government as most members of the PCC are oil marketers. Crazy and stupendous bills were given to the federal government as subsidy money and the federal government not only paid, it paid on time.
For instance, Sayyu Dantata’s MRS Oil requested for payment of N225 billion, Otedola’s AP wanted N104 billion and they were all paid. Most mysterious was the demand by a construction company, Pinnacle Construction which sought payment of a colossal N300 billion and the company was paid with immediate alacrity. Up till today, Nigerians continue to wonder how and where a construction company got involved in oil importation to the extent that it is seeking payment for such a huge sum.
More astounding was the claim by a prominent member of the presidential campaign team and now Minister of Aviation, Mrs. Stella Odua-Ogiemwonyi that she had spent her personal N5 billion on the campaign and she was paid immediately. Stella Odua’s company where she was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Sea Petroleum and Gas submitted an oil subsidy claim of N5 billion and the money was paid.
With the fake oil subsidy fund readily available, the Jonathan team continued its lavish spending. On March 16th 2011, N55 million was paid to a media company for a single slot of advert. By the end of March, a total of N7.3 billion has been paid on adverts alone.
Apart from this, on March 28th 2011, the Jonathan team gave out a car and bus each to the 36 state chapters of the campaign team as well as the chapter in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Apart from this, each state chapter was also given N14 million which translated to N518 million. Add this to the cost of the cars and buses, it meant more than one billion naira was spent on this single exercise. Between April 12th and 15th 2011, the presidential team disbursed N107 billion. So it was no surprise to insiders in the Jonathan and those who are close to the seat of power when subsidy payment rose astronomically from N245 billion to N1.3 trillion between March and August before finally concluding at N1.7 trillion at the end of 2011.
Comparison of payment of subsidy by the federal government from 2006 to 2010 revealed that the claim for the period between March and August 2011 was mindboggling. In 2006, subsidy was made for 26.9 million liters of petroleum products in which N200 billion was paid as subsidy. In 2008, there was claim for 33.4 million liters of petroleum products in which N630 billion was paid as subsidy while in 2010 the claim was even less than 33 million liters of petroleum products in which a little over N600 million was paid.
It was obvious that the Jonathan administration realized it has indeed overshoot its financial limit on the issue of subsidy payment hence its insistence that subsidy should be removed. Towards the end of last year, there was a crisis between the federal government and the 36 states of the federation over the sharing of the revenue of the money accruing to the federation account. On not more than one occasion, the 36 state commissioners of finance boycotted the Federal Allocation Council (FAC) meeting. The reason being that the federal insisted on withdrawing N100 billion for subsidy before the money could be shared a decision that annoyed the state governments. What many Nigerians never knew was the fact that the money being deducted by the federal government was meant to shore up its revenue as it was obvious that huge sum of money has been expended on the election. As at the time Jonathan was sworn-in, the Nigerian treasury was almost empty as virtually the treasury has been emptied to prosecute the election.
If Nigerians are wondering how the spurious N1.7 trillion oil subsidy money was spent, they should ask President Jonathan and his friends.
Source: Premier News.
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