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A Nigerian senate panel is investigating Dangote refinery, Delta govt, and 13 oil firms over alleged misappropriation of N135bn CBN loan. The Senate panel has warned of reporting the oil and gas companies to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) if found guilty of misappropriating the intervention loan.
A Nigerian senate panel is investigating Dangote refinery, Delta govt, and 13 oil firms over alleged misappropriation of N135bn CBN loan. The Senate panel has warned of reporting the oil and gas companies to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) if found guilty of misappropriating the intervention loan. The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Gas Resources, Agom Jarigbe, issued the threat when the beneficiary companies appeared before the committee to explain how they utilized the loan. Jarigbe, representing Cross River North, noted that his committee observed some companies did not use the funds for their intended purpose. According to a report by Premium Times, the N135 billion loan was disbursed to 15 oil and gas companies under the Nigeria Gas Expansion Programme intervention fund of the CBN.
The task of the committee is to ensure that the companies expended the funds on what they collected it for. The observation of the committee is that there are inconsistencies in the process and the committee may not hesitate to involve the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to recover the funds. Some of the beneficiaries did not follow the guidelines. For instance, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources is not even aware that the funds have been released.
The guidelines stated clearly without ambiguity that they are supposed to evaluate the ministry before the list of the qualified ones would be sent to the CBN for them to access the loans but that was not done properly, stated the senator. A preliminary investigation conducted by the committee indicated that some of the companies have not initiated any projects since they received the loans.
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Dangote Oil Refinery secured a loan of N 5 billion. Nigeria is one of the world’s largest oil producers, but mismanagement and corruption in its oil and gas industry are resulting in the loss of billions of dollars each year.
