$20bn Oil Fraud: Jonathan Administration Pressured
PricewaterhouseCooper To Revise Report
One day after President Goodluck Jonathan authorized the
release of a version of a forensic audit of $20bn that is
reportedly missing from Nigeria’s crude oil sales, an oil
industry expert retained by Sahara Reporters to look at the
report has stated that the Nigerian government appeared to
have pressured the auditors, PricewaterhouseCooper, to
revise parts of its preliminary report.
After analyzing the audit report, the expert concluded that
the much-anticipated release of the audit report of Nigeria’s
accounts and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC) has provided few insights into the $20 billion that
was allegedly not remitted to the Federal Accounts.
Jonathan authorized the release of a version of the report
one day after Muhammadu Buhari said
his administration would immediately investigate the
allegation by former Central Bank Governor Sanusi Lamido
Sanusi to the effect that the NNPC had failed to account for
more than $20 billion in crude oil exports by Nigeria.
“The report reveals that PricewaterhouseCooper was
recalled by Nigeria’s auditor general in January 2015 to
share its original findings with the NNPC,” said the expert.
He added, “At this point, PwC received ‘a significant
amount of additional information’ from the NNPC, which
was not reportedly not provided during the original review
period. Consequently, the so-called updated report released
by Jonathan contains significant changes from the
previous report.”
He stated that it was important to investigate the nature of
the “additional information” produced by NNPC “to
determine whether it was simply a tactical deployment of
deceptive data and information to color the audit outcome.”
According to the Abuja-based expert, “it is highly curious
that the NNPC was apparently inept in the quality of
information it originally provided to the auditors. Given the
charged nature of the controversy generated by the matter,
one would expect that the NNPC would be scrupulous in
providing exhaustive information to PricewaterhouseCooper
at the initial stages of the audit.” He stated that it was
important to examine and evaluate the additional
information to ascertain that it was not part of a scheme to
compromise the audit process.
The oil sector expert added that it was significant that,
despite the revision, the sanitized version of the audit still
indicated “there was a shortfall of $1.48 billion in oil
revenue that the NNPC needed to refund to the Federal
Accounts.”
Our expert also remarked that the PwC report also admitted
that it did not even constitute an audit. He pointed to a
section of the report that read, “the procedures we
performed did not constitute an examination or review in
accordance with generally accepted standards or
attestation standards.” The PwC report also warned that its
findings cannot “be relied upon by any other party (third
party)” to Nigeria’s auditor-general. “This is another
curious aspect of the audit,” according to our expert.
“Basically, it’s as if the audit company was telling the world
that the work they set out to do did not follow stringent
standards of auditing. And yet, the Jonathan administration
had promised Nigerians a thorough audit. And a thorough-
going audit is certainly what the government owes the
Nigerian people.”
PwC is one of the world’s leading audit and consulting
companies. SaharaReporters could not ascertain how
much PwC charged the Nigerian government for its work
on the saga of $20 billion in missing oil revenue. CLICK HERE TO READ FULL AND TOUCHING NIGERIAN CELEBRITIES BIOGRAPHY AND SCANDALS
No comments:
Post a Comment
Select "Anonymous" As Your Profile Or Login To Your "Google Account" Post A Comment!