Senate summons CBN governor over missing $9.5m PPT fund

Senate has summoned the Governor of Central Bank of Nigerian (CBN), Godwin Emefiele over alleged missing $9.5m interest accrued from Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) investment.

The PPT is a tax applicable to upstream operations in the oil industry and it is said to be related to rents, royalties, margins, and profit-sharing elements associated with oil mining, prospecting, and exploration leases.

The Senate gave the CBN governor 72 hours ultimatum to appear before the Senate committee on Public Account to explain the disappearance of the money.

The committee maintained that the banking regulator boss must come over on or before this weekend.

The summon of the upper chamber of the National Assembly  on the CBN Governor is coming on the heels of consideration of a report by Auditor-General for the Federation, which probed the spending of federal government agencies.

The report read: “during the examination of transfers to Foreign Excess PPT/Royalty and Foreign Excess Crude Accounts, it was observed that during the year 2016, amount totalling $6 million and $3.5 million were credited to the Foreign PPT/Royalty and Foreign Excess Crude Account as interest on funds investments.

“The authority for placing the funds which yielded the above interests totaling $9.5 million in deposit account, the principal sums deposited, the tenor and rate of interest were not made available for audit verification.

“This observation had also been a subject of my reports since 2017 without any positive response from Central Bank of Nigeria.

“Records made available for audit further revealed that the balance in the foreign PPT/Royaltt and Foreign Excess Crude accounts as at 28th December 2016 were USD0.00 and USD251,826 respectively.

“This suggests the foreign PPT/Royalthy was depleted before the year end.

“The Accountant General has been requested to provide the authority for the funds invested, tenor of the investment, rate unrest payable, certficate for the funds invested and forward same for audit verification.”