Sanusi Lamido says PMS importation by NNPC is fraud

Oredola Adeola

Former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido has alleged that Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) monthly subsidy figure and claim is a fraud, adding that there is a suspicion of a high-level racket in volume of the PMS reportedly imported into the country.

The former CBN boss who is also immediate-past Emir of Kano made this known in a virtual presentation during the Day-2 of the National Economic Summit in Abuja.

Sanusi claimed that the figures are usually inflated by the Corporation whenever global oil prices rise, adding that it is illegal to be removing subsidy money from the federation account.

Checks by EnergyDay show that NNPC imported 60.26million litres per day in July, 2021, compared with August 2021 figure of 57.58 million litres per day of PMS.

Further findings show that the Corporation in 2014 imported 47.67million litres per day(mlpd) of PMS, in 2015 (48.71mlpd), 2016 (47.56mlpd) 2017(47.64mlpd), 2018 (50.16mlpd), 2019 imported 56.39mlpd.

Sanusi said, “I have said this before even as a CBN Governor under the previous government. What I say is not of a particular government. Take petroleum subsidy.

“In 2015 or 2016, former Petroleum Minister Ibe Kachukwu said Nigerian was importing 30 million litres of PMS per day after eliminating corruption. In 2019, the NNPC said we were importing 59 million litres per day after oil prices had gone up. And I have been asking the question: what happened between 2015 and 2019 that our oil consumption has almost doubled?

“This was what also happened under the previous government. When oil prices go up, the NNPC said they were importing more because of the arbitrage. Thus, when the oil prices go high, there is an incentive to inflate the number.”

On the issue of paying from the federation account, he explained that this borders on constitutional and economic issues.

“This money coming from petrol belongs to the federation account, and the federal government doesn’t have the constitutional right to pay subsidy on behalf of the federation.

“So it is a fundamental constitutional issue because this is money that should go to the federal, states and local governments. Yet money that belongs to the federation is carried out as federal government expenditure. So, there are so many complex issues, legal and economic issues. We need to stop these issues,” Sanusi added.