The Senate was on Monday was told that Nigeria has since June 2015 been exporting its oil and non-oil products without documentation.
This was just as it heard that the development has made the country lost over N23.6 billion expected to be repatriated proceeds of the export within the period.
Also, on its own, the Senate alleged discovery of over $850 billion supposedly earned by the country between 1996 and 2014 from its crude oil export proceeds which it alleged was yet to be repatriated to the country by the Joint Venture Oil Companies, a development it noted, was in total contravention of Nigeria’s pre-shipment inspection of export Act and Article 26 of Export Policy Guidelines and procedures for crude oil, Gas and non-oil goods.
The various revelations were made, Monday, during an investigative public hearing organized by a Joint Committee of the Senate Committees on Finance, Trade and Investment, Gas, Petroleum Upstream, Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions, Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, and Customs, Excise and Tariff on the “Need to Investigate Pre Shipment Inspection of Export Activities in Nigeria”.
Senate President, Bukola Saraki, also expressed worry over alleged refusal by international oil companies, which operate Joint Venture Companies (JVCs) with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to repatriate crude oil proceeds worth over $850 billion to the country.
He said the amount accumulated between 1996 and 2014.
Saraki said the action of the JVCs was in total contravention of the Pre-shipment Inspection of Export Act and Article 26 of Export Policy Guidelines and procedures for crude oil, gas and non-oil goods.
Represented by the Senate Leader, Ahmed Lawan, Saraki said the Senate was determined to use all available constitutional means to plug the leakages in the system.
He noted that if the country was good for doing business, it simply meant that the laws of the country must also be respected.
The Senate president insisted that whoever was found culpable will be brought to book no matter how highly placed “because the monies involved is enough to tackle the infrastructural challenges all over Nigeria.”
He added, “There is a frightening consensus that if we do not kill corruption as a country, corruption will kill Nigeria. After so many years of circumventing the process, the 8th Senate is in a hurry to move the country forward, through legislative intervention in order to reverse the abject penury that has become the norm for the majority.
“As leaders across board, we must be sacrificial in our various duty posts and build a great country for the unborn generation by ensuring we fully comply with the laws of the land. If we keep manipulating the process while carrying out activities of government, it will be very difficult to take Nigeria out of the woods.”
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