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The House of Representatives has urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to reveal without delay, all interests and principal sums on the investments in the Excess Crude Account (ECA) Petroleum Profits (PTT) and Royalty Account to the Auditor-General for the Federation’s Office.
The call was sequel to a unanimous adoption of a motion by Esosa Iyawe at plenary, yesterday.
Moving the motion, Iyawe said the CBN is the banker to the Federal Government’s banker and custodian of investment vehicles, including the PPT and ECA among others.
He said the 2015 Annual Report of the Auditor-General for the Federation showed that an interest of 100 per cent and $1.82 million dollars was deposited in the ECA as interest on investments.
According to the lawmaker, there were no details as regards the principal sums deposited, the tenor and the interest rate.
“The CBN has flagrantly and consistently refused the requests by the Auditor-General for the Federation to disclose the details regarding the management of interests accruing from the PPT/ Royalty and Foreign Excess Crude Account; reports which revealed unapproved and indiscriminate withdrawals from the ECA, including current year expenditures, fuel subsidies, debt financing and power projects, all of which are outside the fund’s mandate. Disturbed that the 2016 audit report revealed the disappearance of over $9.5 million interest accrued from the PPT investment,” he said.
Iyawe said obscurity has consistently characterised the management of interests accruing on Federal Government investments, which is in contravention of the accountability principle, and points to misuse of much-needed government funds.
He said that the ECA has been riddled with controversy, allegations of corruption, and uncertain performance.
According to him, its absence of rules governing deposits, withdrawals and investments led to the Natural Resource Governance Institute ranking Nigeria as the second-most poorly governed fund among 34 resource-rich nations.
He said that over the years, the ECA has consistently borne allegations of mismanagement along with a barrage of lawsuits challenging its legality as there is no law backing it.
Iyawe said that experts have raised concerns several times over ECA’s balances which seem to change at will without any corresponding evidence of withdrawals or approvals of such withdrawals.
He said that the lack of transparency from the CBN has significantly affected the revenue accruable to the Federation Account, as well as undermines the Federal Government’s efforts to plug leakages, reduce corruption, and improve revenue for the Federation.
The House resolved to set up an Ad-hoc Committee to determine the legality of ECA and investigate the status and management of all the principal sums deposited, tenor, and interest rate of the PPT/Royalty and ECA from 2015 to date.
In his ruling, Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu, mandated the committee, when constituted to ensure compliance.
The House is to investigate alleged incessant incidences of aviation fuel contamination, associated air travel risks and possible non-adherence to standard operating procedures and industry best practices in the aviation oil industry.
The resolution followed the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance by Tunji Olawuyi.
In his motion, he said the contamination of the main fuel tanks of Boeing 737-300 aircraft belonging to Max Air B737-300 leading to the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) shutdown on July, 7 at the Yola Airport.
He said Max Air had reportedly confirmed that it got the contaminated fuel from certain undisclosed aviation refueling outlet.
This he said eventually led to the unfortunate incidence and grounding of its 5N-MHM aircraft by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA)
He noted that NCAA followed the incident via a letter NCAA/DG/AIR/11/16/363 dated July 9, and suspended parts A3 aircraft authorization and D43 aircraft listing of the Operations Specifications issued to Max Air Limited.
He said this was with regards to the operations of the Boeing B737 aircraft type in their fleet.
He said NCAA noted several occurrences involving Max Air Boeing B737 aircraft including the loss of Number 1 Main Landing Gear (MLG) wheel during the serious incident involving a Boeing 737-400 aircraft.
He said this occurred between take-off at Yola Airport, Adamawa State and on landing at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, Nigeria on May 7.
He said many flight accidents in history were caused by fuel contamination resulting in abnormal operation of aircraft engines and water as a major contaminant.
He said in recent times, NCAA had been receiving series of mandatory occurrence reports from airlines and other aircraft operators with issues related to water being found in the aircraft fuel tank of the aircraft.
He decried the inability of NCAA and other associated aviation and oil regulatory agencies to address the increasing sharp practices in the aviation fueling industry.
This according to to him is where some unregistered portfolio jet fuel marketers using the throughput arrangement to supply aviation fuel with little or zero traceability.
He said this is mostly in its supply chain instead of the regulated Joint Venture (JV) model with negative impact on lives, properties, economy and the aviation industry.
He expressed concern that the Nigerian regulatory agencies in the aviation oil industry had demonstrated lack of capacity and failed to ensure certification of appropriate specification.
He also said that they have failed to ensure proper handling of fuels to remain essentially free of harmful contaminants during production, transportation and distribution.
The house in adopting the motion constituted and ad hoc committee to investigate the increasing incidences of aviation fuel contamination.
The house also urged the committee to unravel associated air travel risks and possible non-adherence to standard operating procedures and industry best practices in the aviation oil industry and report to the House in eight weeks.
