By DENNIS MERNYI

Panic has gripped staff of the Petroleum ministry over the revelations contained in the just released report of the Petroleum Revenue Task Force Committee(PRTFC) headed by Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. This is even as President Goodluck Jonathan has directed that the controversial report be submitted to him on Friday this week.

Since this order, an uneasy calm has pervaded the already tensed atmosphere in Nigeria’s petroleum industry. This perhaps was caused by the various financial scandals that have dogged the country’s highest revenue earner. The Mallam Nuhu Ribadu led PRTFC had last week revealed that large sums of oil revenue amounting to over hundreds of millions of dollars in signature bonuses have been missing since 2002.

The sleaze, according to the report involved ministers of the Petroleum Resources ministry, politicians, top government officials, cronies of the government as well as some oil multinationals who have helped themselves with bumper profits from cut-price gas. Petroleum minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison Madueke, was perhaps caught unawares by the leakage of the report to the public and was quoted to have actually admitted being in possession of the said PRTFC report over a month ago but had planned to rather set up another committee to vet it before making it public.

This statement is, however, causing anxiety among Nigerians on whether the minister was either satisfied with the report or views it as containing facts that would rather worsen the ugly situation on ground. Ribadu alongside Mr. Steve Orasanye, the former Head of Service of the Federation and 18 others were mandated on February 7, 2012 by the Petroleum minister, Mrs Madueke to rid the petroleum industry of the long existed corruption occasioned by lack of accountability and transparent deals over the years.

The minister had asked the task force to design an enhanced programme for probity and accountability in the operations of the petroleum industry. The task force was to among other issues work with consultants and experts to determine and verify petroleum downstream and upstream revenues including taxes and royalties due and payable to the Nigerian government.

The committee was also charged to take necessary steps to collect all debts due and owing to obtain agreement and enforce payments terms by all oil industry operators. They were also to design a cross debt matrix between all agencies and parastatals of the ministry of Petroleum Resources and develop an automated platform to enable effective tracking, monitoring and online validation of income and debt drivers of all parastatals and agencies in the ministry of Petroleum Resources.

http://8boomnet.com/index.php/easyblog/entry/panic-grips-oil-sector-over-ribadu-s-report

Wooooooo!! Finaly am d first to comment. .

Pls bfo i move on, i wanna use this opportunity to greet my Mum, my sisters.. Dr. Jovita and Dr. Judy at Fmc owerri and Imsuth respectively. Pls i wont forget my baby....Ijeoma-u mean so much to me.

@Topic: whoever or any firm that had a hand in this subsidy scam should face the full weight of d law......includin my uncle at Conoil.

Can Jonathan clean up the system, e get the liver? I doubt o.