Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Bukola Saraki, has dismissed media reports that the panel cleared Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of the allegation of unremitted billions of dollars oil revenue as leveled by suspended Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

“Though I could not attend the last meeting of the committee, I have been very active in the investigation; nothing significant has changed to suggest clearing anybody,” Saraki said yesterday in a statement issued in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, by his Special Assistant on Media, Bamikole Omishore.

Continuing, the former Kwara State Governor said: “I can say, on behalf of the Committee, that these media reports bear no correlation to the content of the Senate Committee report and I would urge the public to disregard it in its entirety.

“The Committee is yet to receive the report on the forensic audit and independent analysis on the subject clearly indicate we have a lot of grounds to cover in order to determine the level of culpability or otherwise of agency on the alleged non-committal.

“Therefore, to suggest any clearance for anybody at this stage is out of the question. I will further advise that the media should wait for the senate to release the details of the Committee report to the public before they jump into spurious conclusions.”

The Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led committee had in its 73-page report submitted on Wednesday, indicted NNPC over unremitted $480 billion, including $262 million and $218,069,354.32, being the money it spent on expenses it could not account for and the outstanding amount from gross lifting under the third party financing respectively.

The committee directed the NNPC to refund the above money to the Federation Account, since it is the federal government’s share of the third party financing of crude lifting within the period under review.

News Express recalls that Sanusi had in a letter to Jonathan which was leaked to the press alleged that $49.8 billion was missing from the Federation Account between January 2012 and July 2013. A joint meeting of the ministries of finance and petroleum with the CBN and the Nigerian national Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) arrived at $10.8bn as the unaccounted funds but Sanusi later insisted that the outstanding sum was $20bn.

•Photo shows Senate Finance Committee Vice Chairman, Bukola Saraki.

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