The House of Representatives says the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, Abubakar Malami, allegedly paid $200 million as consulting fees in whistleblower recoveries by the AGF.
The adhoc committee is investigating the sale of 48 million barrels of crude oil totaling more than $2.4 billion and crude oil export to China from 2014 to date.
At the resumed public hearing on the matter, the committee’s chairman, Mark Gbillah, also said Malami and the minister of finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, had not been cooperating with the committee and had declined to respond to inquiries regarding the crude sales despite letters of invitation sent to them.
”We’ve seen documentation from the Accountant General’s office, where the minister of finance approved the payment of the substantial amount of money to so-called whistle-blowers where details of monies recovered were not provided.
“’We’ve heard media reports by the Federal Government indicating that millions of dollars were recovered through whistle-blower revelations on behalf of the country, but we as a parliament have not seen that those monies were routed through the constitutional appropriation process before they were expended. The constitution is very clear about the receipt and expenditure of Nigeria’s money.
Gbillah, who expressed displeasure at the actions of the two public officers, however, appealed to them to cause an appearance before the committee or risk arrest.
“We need the Minister of Finance, and the Attorney General of the Federation to appear before this House to provide clarity on the inflows that have come in from whistle-blowers’ recoveries, and how these monies were recovered.
The CBN is required to provide information that has been provided by these whistleblowers about substantial amounts of monies paid allegedly for consultancy services when there’s no record of any agreement entered into by those companies regarding any services.