News Agency of Nigeria
reports that the House of Representatives has threatened to issue a warrant of
arrest for the two government officials over the sale of Oil Prospecting
Licenses (OPLs) and Oil Mining Leases OMLs to some international oil companies.
Governor of the Central
Bank of Nigeria Godwin Emefiele and the accountant-general of the federation
Ahmed Idris face being arrested by security agencies over oil licences.
The threat was issued by
chairman of the House Ad-hoc committee on OPLs/OMLs Honourable Gideon Gwani
(PDP-Kaduna) while briefing newsmen on Friday, January 27 in Abuja.
Gwani said the committee
came to this conclusion in the course of its investigation which revealed that
there were many anomalies in the process of the award of the oil blocs to IOCs
by the government.
“Our findings
have shown that 1.4billion dollars may be lost by the Federal Government on the
OPLs/OMLs deal,’’ he said.
Gwani said
the arrest of the two officials would be carried out if the Petroleum Resources
ministry, CBN and AGF Office failed to provide evidence of payment of the
signature bonuses on the sale of the oil blocs.
Meanwhile,
experts says the cut in oil production due to the Niger Delta crisis and the
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) intervention and trading restrictions that prop
up the value of the Naira have stymied trade and investment in Nigeria.
A more
favorable oil and foreign-currency environment could help the economy expand,
analysts say.
No comments:
Post a Comment