Senate taps EFCC to recover N135b CBN gas expansion loans

The Nigerian Senate has threatened to involve the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to recover the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) intervention loan of N135 billion given to 15 oil and gas companies.

The Senate Committee on Gas Resources made this threat when the oil and gas firms appeared before the lawmakers to explain how they utilized the loan. The loan was disbursed under the Nigeria Gas Expansion Program intervention fund of the CBN.

Jarigbe said Nipco Gas Ltd obtained N25 billion (N25,000,000,000.00), Nipco Plc got N5 billion (N5,000,000,000.00), Hyde Energy Ltd received N2 billion (N2,000,000,000.00) and Lee Engineering And Construction Company got N15 billion (N15,000,000,000 00) from the gas expansion intervention fund.

Others are, Pinnacle Oil And Gas Fze which received N10 billion (N10,000,000,000.00), Transit Gas Limited got N8 billion (N8,000,000,000.00), Amalgamated Oil Company Nig Ltd (AMOCON) obtained N5 billion (N5,000,000,000.00) and Gas Nexus Ltd had N10 billion (N10,000,000,000.00).

First Modular Gas Systems Limited secured N4.3 billion (N4,300,000,000.00), Novagas Limited got N1 billion (N1,000,000,000.00), Greenville Liquified Natural Gas Company received N10 billion (N10,000,000,000.00) and AP LPG Limited had N8 billion (N8,000,000,000.00).

Dangote Oil Refinery received N5 billion (N5,000,000,000.00), Delta State Government got N20 billion (N20,000,000,000.00) and Mob Integrated Services Limited obtained N2.5 billion (N2,500,000,000.00) from the gas expansion intervention fund.

Read also: Senate taps EFCC to recover N135bn CBN gas expansion loans

Jarigbe explained that members of his committee have observed that some of the oil and gas companies did not utilise the fund for the purpose it was obtained.

The Committee Chairman stated that federal lawmakers will not hesitate to involve anti-corruption agencies to forcefully recover the funds from any of the companies which failed to utilise the loan judiciously.

“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” he said.

Jarigbe complained that some of the companies did not follow the guidelines and standard procedures before obtaining the loan.

“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.

He claimed preliminary investigation conducted by members of the committee indicated that some of the companies did not facilitate any project since they received the loans.

“We have also discovered that some of the companies do not have anything on the ground since they got the loan.

“The committee would investigate all the observations and work on them and let Nigerians know the true position of things”.

Jarigbe thereafter collected the records of the beneficiaries and the locations of their project sites for proper investigations.