Subsidy fraud: Witness says marketer forged documents to obtain N963.7m

A prosecution witness, Ihechukwu Ireogbu, on Tuesday testified that an oil marketer, Rowaye Jubril, forged some documents to fraudulently obtain N963.7 million subsidy payment from the Federal Government.
Ireogbu, Managing Director, MGI Inspection Limited, gave evidence at the resumed trial of Jubril before Justice Lateefat Okunnu of an Ikeja High Court.
Jubril was charged to court alongside his company, Brila Energy Limited.
They are being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
Ireogbu, who was cross-examined by Jubril’s counsel, Raphael Oluyede, said that his firm had a prior business relationship with the defendant.
He, however, testified that MGI Inspection Limited did not participate in the inspection of the 13,500 metric tonnes of Premium Motor Spirit purportedly imported by Jubril.
The witness said that the claim by Jubril that the company inspected the product on January 26 and 27, 2011 at off-shore, Cotonou in Benin Republic, “was completely false.”
Ireogbu said that he instructed Felix Iweka, an employee of the Port Cargo Services – a subsidiary of the company – to go to Cotonou to carry out the inspection.
According to him, Iweka later confirmed that he did not inspect ship-to-ship transfer of the product between the mother vessel, MT Overseas Lima, and the daughter vessel, MT Delphina.
“He only carried out a survey on another vessel and not this particular transaction,” the witness said.
Also testifying, Akinwunmi Olarenwaju, an employee of the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency, said that the agency made fruitless efforts to contact the purported supplier of the product.
Olarenwaju, who was led in evidence by EFCC’s counsel, Seidu Atteh, said that the defendant had claimed that he purchased the product from Napa Petroleum Trade Incorporation, Panama.
He said: “The EFCC requested a tripartite meeting among the suppliers, the oil marketers and the PPPRA in respect of the transactions.
“We invited Napa Petroleum, Mercurial Trading and Namax Petroleum for the meeting.”
The witness testified that Napa Petroleum did not respond to its letter and failed to attend the said meeting.
The case has been adjourned till January 21, 2014 for continuation of trial.