The Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on Thursday in Abuja called for independent forensic audit to resolve the puzzle over unremitted funds to the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Okonjo-Iweala made the call at the Senate Committee on Finance hearing on the alleged missing $20 billion.
The Minister of Petroleum, Deizani Alison-Madueke, was also at the hearing.
Also at the hearing were Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, Andrew Yakubu, and the CBN Governor, Mallam Lamido Sanusi.
Okonjo-Iweala said: “Let us now focus on the original $10.8 billion, which was the shortfall we had as at July 2013.
“Another reconciliation meeting was held at which NNPC presented data of how they utilised the balance of $10.8 billion.
“This includes amount withheld for subsidy, $8.76 billion; holding cost of strategic reserve, $0.4599 billion; and pipeline crude oil and product losses of $0.761 billion.
“There was also pipeline management at the cost of $0.905 billion.”
According to Okonjo-Iweala, the data presented are all certified by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency.
She said the reconciliation committees called for backup documents to enable it verify the certified papers.
She added: “Our judgment is that a proper examination of these documents requires technical expertise beyond the capacity of the reconciliation team.
“Therefore, we believe we should have an independent forensic audit to manage these submissions.”
She said that the $20 billion alleged by the CBN as missing featured in the original reconciliation effort in the cascade presented by the NNPC.
She said that the committee agreed that the issues surrounding the alleged fund was legal and required careful legal interpretation.
Earlier, the Chairman of the committee, Senator Ahmed Makarafi, had charged the reconciliation group to carry out the forensic audit and get back to the committee in one month.
Makarfi said that the committee would reconvene on February 20 to enable the Attorney General of Federation to give legal advice on the issue.
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