ABUJA – Senate of the Federal Republic yesterday, mandated its Committee on Public Accounts to carry out a holistic investigation into clandestined bank accounts being allegedly operated by Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation.
The Senate investigative committee is to conduct a detailed study of activities of the operation of the said accounts and report back within four (4) weeks.
Specifically, the Senate panel is to look into “the objectives of the account?; The Signatories to the Account?; Is the account known to the Federal Government?; and What are the sources of the account’s fund?”.
The resolution followed a motion, “Urgent need to investigate NNPC, Nigerian Agip Oil Company 1PP Security”, by Sen. Dino Melaye (Kogi West).
In the motion, Sen. Melaye noted with serious concern the operation of an account by the NNPC/Agip Oil Company in defiance of federal government Treasury Single Account policy.
According to him, “the account” was “opened with the name NNPC/ Nigerian Agip oil Company IPP Security account with address NNPC Garki, Herbert Macaulay Way is domiciled in First Bank Nigeria Plc with account number 2006367288”.
He also observed that the opening balance was N31,704,807,979.2 with a closing balance of N34,423,738,086.4 as at 25th April, 2017.
There has been lodgment and withdrawals since January, 2017 and a lot of questions are begging for answers as regards this account
To this end, he submitted that there was an “urgent need to investigate the rationale behind the operation of this account”.
