Impunity twerked Unclad at the market square. It is still not done twerking.Thousands of forged documents , outlandish fairy tales, pervasive conscience searing mendacity .
The whole of an annual capital budget plundered by a few. Noises were
made, scapegoats whipped out and paraded in courts, backdoor
negotiations were held at night. Many made away with their loot ,smiling
and twerking or rather gyrating.
Some say it is their luck. Many had metamorphosed into
‘transformation ambassadors’. Others now mount rostrums, exponents of
the grass to grace phenomenon. A few plotted to govern their states. And
why wouldn’t they? Government officials whose gross incompetence and
willful negligence can only be explained by sleaze induced criminal
conspiracy did not get even a mere rebuke.
Some were promoted. Before long, the grand criminal enterprise
resumed, operators and regulators were allowed to continue what they
hadn’t finished before they were apparently rudely interrupted – milking
the country.
And how can you charge a man for forging a bill of lading, for
forging form ‘M’, for manufacturing documents of fictitious vessel and
stealing billions of naira in the process and yet you turn around the
very following week and award the accused the largest crude lifting
contract in the land? The prosecutors got the message.
2011 subsidy surpasses 8 years subsidy
In 2011 the nation spent more on fuel subsidy than it did in the
entire eight years of Obasanjo’s leadership. The finance minister was
same Ngozi Okonjo Iweala . She knew what real subsidy figures should
look like . She was not perturbed. Or was she? No one resigned in
righteous anger. Sophistries were regurgitated to explain the
phenomenon, the aberration, its normality.
The economy was expanding rapidly they claimed, so the dramatic rise
in fuel imports and subsidy payments could be explained. They lied.
They brandished their their tales as cudgels so that any one who had a
contrary opinion became an enemy of the government. Until the riots that
pricked the house of representatives, who waded into the matter, and
opened many cans of worms.
Large scale fraud crafted at the highest levels was perpetuated by
government agencies, banks and hundreds of companies and persons . Goats
were invited into the barn, they ate to their fill and strutted away
with swagger , with yams loaded on their backs. People awoke to the
revelation with their ‘tufiakwas’ . “ O lorun maje “ we had all screamed
. Before long all the noises died down, we resumed our slumber.
They say we have a collective social pathology – amnesia. Those of
them who were unlucky to have been charged to court , the sacrificial
lambs, have the benefit of a reluctant prosecution and fatiguing state
witnesses and the near omnipotence of plenty money . State witnesses
have started disowning the earlier statements and affidavits. Time and
money have a way of wearing out the resolve of such witnesses.
It’s four years and interests and moral resolves are dying or even
dead. After 10 years as state witness no one could remember what
versions of Sgt Rogers testimonies and recants was on the table in that
long drawn out case involving Al Mustapha. Many who committed
sacrileges, stole tons and billions of naira in collusion with federal
agencies and principals of the state in broad day light have walked
away. Case files thoroughly messed up. Strange and curious bargains
reached with the EFCC on repatriation of stolen funds.
The public has been left out. No one knows who is returning what and
what has been returned. What was once a public scandal, aired soap
opera is now neatly shrouded in government mystery. We were told more
would be charged to court , that the cases were being filed in phases.
We now know better. Deals have now been struck .
How many have been charged ? And how did the prosecution select whom
to charge and whom to bargain with since persons who committed similar
offences have not been treated alike? Shouldn’t such bargains be plea
bargains? If the Jonathan presidency constituted an albatross for
investigators and prosecutors, are they still bound now? Are their hands
still tied? Is the perfidy irreversible?
Nigerians resist Jonathan’s plan to check the monster he created
2012 began with an uprising against the attempt by the Jonathan’s
government to withdraw subsidy on petrol. By the end of 2011 subsidy
payments had literally destroyed the nation’s economy. Jonathan and
company knew why and how the subsidy monster was created and unleashed
on the people . Ordinary Nigerians were unaware of the damage that had
been done and ignorantly resisted Jonathan who tried to rein in the
monster he had unleashed.
Jonathan assumed the presidency after Yaradua’s demise . He had been
everything in politics but he was politically unschooled. He had been
catapulted to the top fortuitously , never prosecuted his own election
before 2011. Against a north for whom Yaradua’s death could not mean a
return of power to the south, Jonathan’s dream of running in 2011 was
headed into strong political headwinds.
Without clout, without personal political structures, without charm
and charisma, Jonathan would have to buy and rent. Close presidential
aides decided money could guarantee everything.
The Petroleum subsidy fund was created in 2006 and was structured to
pool funds from the three tiers of government to cushion the prices of
petroleum products. The burden was to fall 50:25:25 on the federal,
state and local governments. The states and local governments looked
away and the federal government winked at the petroleum ministry and the
NNPC and all hell broke loose. If the guideline of the scheme that
stipulated the publication of monthly accounts had been followed then
perhaps state governors would have been jolted out of their attitude in
good time. Perhaps ignorance isn’t always bliss after all.
FG increases fuel importers from six to 140
In 2006 the country had just 5 fuel importers plus NNPC under the
scheme but by the end of 2011, when the filth had hit the fan , the
Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) had a list of 140
companies who had been given import allocations and who had collected
subsidy payments. Necessity they say is the mother of all inventions,
good or bad.
The presidency needed money to prosecute the 2011 elections and the
guidelines that restricted participants in the scheme to only depot
owners had to be sacrificed. The door to the barn was deemed too small.
They wanted to empower indigenous marketers , they claimed. They always
had good reasons to cloak their evil motives.
The hard times for banks and oil marketers
The subsidy scam met other exigencies. 2008/2009 was a horrendous
time for banks and oil marketers. The world economic collapse and the
sharp drop in oil prices had crippled many oil trading companies and
left huge holes in the books of banks. So for many of these companies
and banks, morality could as well wait. As more entrants came and the
stakes got higher, strategies and stratagems changed and changed until
caution became a hindrance and was discarded altogether.
They went from the bold to the audacious to the down right
ridiculous. It’s safe to think that they never imagined the forged
papers they submitted would ever be dug up. Initially the vessels were
off loaded into storage tanks and back-loaded into other vessels a
couple of days after and sold offshore Cotonou or Togo. But later, even
that became unnecessary wahala. Import nothing, don’t even bother
procuring foreign exchange, those motions became unnecessary. Just forge
everything and give everybody his “due” and dance to your billions in
the bank.
A nation that does not plan is a nation destined for disaster. And
without data not only can one not plan , his barns are vulnerable to
leaders whom ambition have turned into scoundrels. We have a bureau of
statistics that does not know how much petrol we consume daily. It is a
key defence data but the military wouldn’t know either. Paucity of data
makes the nation vulnerable in many ways.
Any petroleum minister can instigate and supervise unrestrained
importation of petroleum products in place of a full blown fund raising
bazaar. At some point marketers were asked to just deposit money,
preferably in billions, and they were given allocations and contracts to
recoup later and swim in profit. Little wonder the expo carried on even
after the conclusion of the 2011 elections.
With six companies importing in 2006 the nation spent about 261
billion on petroleum subsidy. In 2007, 10 companies were engaged and
total subsidy figures were about 278 billion naira. In 2008 we had 19
companies and we spent 346 billion on subsidy. The drama began in 2010 ,
after Yaradua. And by the end of 2011 we had 140 companies , it had
become an all comers affairs.
Politicians turn middlemen for import allocations
As government fuel importers mushroomed, the demands made on them
before they could be given allocations skyrocketed. The allocations were
given by PPPRA but the ministry of petroleum resources practically
wrote the list. At some point before the 2011 elections marketers
wanting allocations for 15,000 metric tonnes of PMS parted with as much
as one million dollars. And the money had to be paid in dollars. Little
wonder the presidential committee set up in the wake of the subsidy
brouhaha discovered that companies that had not been
pre-qualified and registered by the PPPRA also received allocations.
Registrations and applications were inconsequential formalities, dollar
deposit was the main act. Prominent government officials and big
politicians became middlemen and hawkers of allocations. Was the
Presidency’s focus on the nation’s daily needs? The PPPRA allowed
companies to import fuel so much in excess of the countries
requirements.
And since the profit in bringing in 15,000metric tones at the time
could not have been more than 300,000 dollars and marketers were made to
part with about a million dollars in advance, in bribes, marketers got
the message that the government was not interested in genuine
transactions.
Apart from bribes making the cost benefit calculations impossible,
logistical limitations didn’t help constrain the feelings that “deals”
had become inevitable. Vessels were on interminable queues and tanks
were filled, there was a massive glut yet more and more allocations were
churned out. NNPC on its part spent billions in demurrage costs.
Involvement of the banks
Many banks trampled on extant financial regulations with impunity in
the course of those transactions. Many others worked hand in hand with
the marketers in the criminal enterprise. Some even helped customers
doctor their accounts statements when investigations started. But all
have walked away. Their sullied reputations ostensibly intact. But why
did many of the banks participate so actively in the fraud?
Writhing from the pains of the economic recession of 2008 and the
collapse of the stock and oil markets to which many of them where
heavily exposed , the banks were riddled with bad debts. AMCON was in
the process of cleaning them but the consequences of the sort of
provisioning that CBN demanded was enormous . And we know Nigerian banks
. When the push comes to shove, everything becomes permissible.
So you had a situation where many so called reputable banks received
subsidy payments on behalf of customers who opened no form “M”s . In
some outrageous instances some banks opened LCs for marketers in favour
of international traders supposedly for the importation of petrol .
But a few days/weeks later the same customers received inflows of
nearly same amount from the same foreign traders or poorly identified
foreign sources. Cargo had been resold to the seller by the supposed
buyer. The banks feigned ignorance. But the money laundering laws place a
duty on them to know the sources and reasons of such huge inflows. The
Financial Intelligence Unit exists but you wonder what they really do.
Then the rogue marketers sent in counterfeit documents and conjured
approvals to support applications for fuel subsidy for cargoes they did
not import. They will nominate their banks , as it is the practice, to
receive the subsidy payment. The Banks received billions from the CBN
for transactions they should have known and did know were fictitious.
The duty the money laundering act places on banks cannot be satisfied by
a plea of ignorance. Many of the banks colluded with their customers to
defraud the nation and not a single bank chief executive was charged
and not a single bank was blacklisted and not a single bank was
punished. Now, that is impunity.
The presidential committee on subsidy had two prominent and
reputable bank chief executives as chairman and secretary . They did a
wonderfully detailed and meticulous job . But how did banks and
officials that connived with these people to bleed the treasury escape
sanctions?
And where was the CBN ?
The CBN governor then , the Emir of Kano, shouted himself hoarse as
the nations’ subsidy payments ballooned. By the end of 2010 Sanusi was
going literally berserk. But did he do enough? I don’t think so. He
should have resigned. NNPC learnt to deduct its own subsidy payments
from crude costs. Yes, they wouldn’t even wait for the CBN. There was a
budgetary allocation for subsidy but no one was really constrained by
those formalities.
But there was more. The CBN paid marketers who had not sourced any
foreign exchange to import fuel. If it were more vigilant it could have
declined the payments until such marketers proved their sources of
funds. The CBN helped the investigations by the various committees with
copious evidence , exposing many fraudulent marketers . Very good but
not enough.
Many will wonder why the CBN which was the only agency that was
altruistically enthusiastic of bringing those involved to book and
stemming the subsidy leakages did not investigate and punish erring
banks and their managements. The CBN failed woefully in that respect.
But its not late to make amends.
THE PPPRA – A regulatory or thieving agency?
Under the PSF scheme the PPPRA is the agency to regulate the
importation and pricing of petroleum products. It is supposed to collect
data, prequalify and register marketers , decide on the volume to be
imported and allocate import quotas to marketers. The PPPRA is mandated
by law to monitor imports’ arrival , documentation, verification,
certification, storage and distribution. It is supposed to work out
under recovery or over recovery costs.
The PPPRA under the weight of executive influence and manipulation
from above and heavy monetary inducement and pull from below collapsed
and abdicated its responsibilities. And surrendered wholeheartedly to
temptation and filth . The PPPRA deliberately dismantled the hedges of
the barn and joined in its despoliation. They relaxed the requirements
for registration in 2010 and in many instances handed out allocations to
companies that were not even registered.
In the words of the House of Reps committee that investigated the
subsidy scam, PPPRA engaged in a series of abuses of due diligence
process. Their actions were fraught with a glaring lack of transparency
and deliberate opacity. In sum , according to the committee , there
existed a synergistic criminal enterprise between the operators and the
regulators.
The Aig Imokuede presidential committee also had many unkind words
for the lepromatous PPPRA. PPPRA verified , certified and approved for
payment cargoes whose mother vessels were fictitious , imaginations of
poorly thinking thieves. Without approval of external inspectors and
auditors, the PPPRA approved billions for the con men.
And when called upon to provide their documentation for such scams
they turned up with photo copies of forged documents and muddled
presentations. The PPPRA’s conduct spoke eloquently of willful
collaboration with people who raped our economy. But how many agents and
officers of the PPPRA have been charged or convicted? It’s four whole
years after. Please don’t ask me.
PPPPRA never recovered any over recovery costs for the nation . In
instances when the cost of importation fell below approved petrol prices
the agency was supposed to work out the over recovery and extract same
from the marketers. The nation got nothing from over recovery even
though such instances existed.
Subsequent to the revelations and the investigations by the House of
Reps , the presidential committee and the EFCC, indicted marketers and
even those already facing criminal prosecutions continued to participate
in the scheme. Marketers who had stolen billions of naira in the
petroleum subsidy scheme continued to be awarded import allocations.
Wonders they say will never cease! Well they are innocent until proven
guilty, I guess. Pathetic.
A top shot at PPPRA at the time went on to become part of Jonathan’s
campaign. None in PPRA left in disgrace and none is in jail.
THE DPR – a sleeping or colluding policeman?
The Department of Petroleum Resources is mandated by law to regulate
the petroleum industry in general. With regards to the petroleum
subsidy scheme the DPR is supposed to issue a permit to prospective
importers, certify the quality and quantity of imported products and
monitor their discharge into tanks. They are also empowered to monitor
the distribution alongside the PEF(M)B and make sure they are sold at
approved prices at approved fuel stations.
Like the other regulatory agencies , the DPR compromised under the
weight of monetary inducements and allowed all manner of atrocities.
Vessels that were in the far east were signed up as having discharged
off shore Cotonou or in tank farms in Apapa. Some vessels came in with
products , hoses were connected and after two or three days of idling ,
hoses were disconnected , no products discharged and vessels were
cleared to leave as if they had discharged .
And the DPR signed the papers of the marketers who went on to
collect billions in subsidy only to transship such products, once they
were out of Nigerian waters, to other traders who would bring them in
again as fresh products for fresh subsidy. DPR officials like all other
persons involved in the subsidy scheme at the time filled their bank
accounts with dollars. Officials collected their hefty filthy dues in
hard currency.
How many of the DPR officials are being prosecuted? Has any been
convicted? How many were dismissed? Impunity is still twerking. Many of
them are still in their positions monitoring the subsidy scheme and many
have since been promoted. The bosses of the DPR walked away , not in
shame.
Continues next week when we bring you the roles other government
agencies played in raping the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Stay with us
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