The Senate joint committee on Finance, Trade and Investment, Gas, Petroleum Upstream, Banking, insurance and other Financial Institutions, Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, and Customs and Excise have commenced investigation into alleged collusion by some Nigerian banks with International Oil Companies to defraud the country.
According to a report in the Senate, the IOCs have allegedly denied the country of $62,909,716,417 billion between August 2009 and December 2014.
A document in the Assembly revealed that the affected banks have been asked to produce copies of certified Nigeria Export Proceed issued or processed by them in respect of all crude oil and gas exported by oil companies, including Nigeria Agip Company Limited, Chevron Nigerian Limited, Shell Petroleum Developing Company Nigeria Limited and their affiliates between April 1996 and December, 2016.
It was gathered that the affected banks were also asked for details of domiciliary accounts opened and/or closed within the period, especially those specified for crude oil and gas exports.
Already, officials of two banks – Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank – last Thursday appeared before the joint committee.
It was gathered that other banks will soon be invited.
A member of the Joint Committee, Senator Yusuf Yusuf (Taraba State), was concerned that funds brought to the country as oil export proceeds are immediately withdrawn, raising questions whether Nigerian was reaping benefits of its oil exports.
The Senator said: “It is worrisome that money comes in today, tomorrow the same amount goes out of the country. The practice runs through statement of account submitted by the banks. The oil companies bring in $20 billion today, tomorrow $20 billion is taken out from the account.
“The banks are colluding with multi-national oil companies to defraud the country.
“The government relies on the banks, the banks are now colluding with the multi-national oil companies.”
The Chairman of the joint committee, Senator John Enoh, also confirmed that the job of his committee was to ensure that banks are not allowed to collude with IOCs to flout the laws of Nigeria.
One of the documents being examined by the committee indicated that Citibank Nigeria operates different domiciliary export proceeds accounts many oil companies.
For instance, the document shows that the Nigerian Agip Oil Company recorded a total export inflow valued at $15,372,882,703.36.
Chevron Group recorded a total inflow valued at $44,020,596,289.99, while Shell group made a total inflow valued at $3,516,237,425.79, giving total of $62,909,716,417 billion.