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Officers from the Nigeria Police Anti-Fraud Unit were directed to arrest representatives of two oil marketers within the National Assembly complex, Abuja on Thursday over alleged diversion of $276.9 million foreign exchange allocated for importation of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).
The security agents led by Deputy Supretendent of Police (DSP) was also mandated to obtain Court order to get the bank statements of the affected oil companies placed on further inquiry.
Recall that similar arrests were carried out at the National Assembly complex, Abuja, on Wednesday over $141 million forex allegedly diverted by three oil marketers.
The Thursday’s directive was issued by Nnanna Igbokwe, chairman of the Adhoc committee while cross-examining the report of the CBN Governor on forex allocation and documents submitted by NNPC and its subsidiaries as well as the oil marketers on importation of petroleum products.
Igbokwe who queried the oil marketers over diversion of petroleum products that are traced to the oil companies, summoned the Managing Director (MD) of Ascon Oil Ltd and Folawiyo Energy Limited to appear on the 15th May, 2017with relevant documents relating to the $80 million and $190 million forex allocated to both companies for importation of PMS.
To this end, the committee resolved to further place on enquiry 25,000MT of PMS under the custody of Folawiyo Energy Ltd which was discharged in June 2016 at MT High Efficiecy by Pipeline and Product Marketing Company (PPMC) that cannot be traced.
While responding, Oladipo Makanjuola, who spoke on behalf of Folawiyo Energy Limited denied owing PPMC stock or take responsibility for any missing product because we only follow what they instruct us to do.
“For the record, my company has never owed PPMC in finance or stock, it will be uncharitable for them to claim we owe them. They are responsible for evacuation of their stock we only do the physical inspection,” Makujola noted.
Igbokwe who argued that the product under inquiry could not be traced by the records provided by relevant agencies involved in the transactions, said: “You cannot say you don’t have control over evacuation of stock because if products are missing we would ask you.”
In a related development, the Committee also placed on further inquiry the $6.9 million accessed by another oil marketers which imported AGO, as well as the source of its import licence.
While ruling, Igbokwe requested for all the documents relating to the import licence, pro-forma invoices, Letter of Credit (LC), receipts of payment to Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and NIMASA, DPR and other regulatory agencies.
KEHINDE AKINTOLA, Abuja
