Fred Itua, Abuja
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has been named by Senator Dino Melaye in a fresh multi-million dollar corruption scandal.
Melaye, who disclosed this at yesterday’s plenary, said NNPC is allegedly involved in “monumental corruption,” and that the national oil company registered a company by the name, Brass NLG, jointly owned by investors from Italy, Belgium, France, among others.
He said contrary to statutory provisions that the account of the company be domiciled in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), NNPC and its partners, instead, opened an account with a commercial bank and that the said account has no Bank Verification Number (BVN).
“This morning (yesterday), I draw the attention of the Nigerian Senate to a suspected colossal, monumental corruption in NNPC. It is a known fact that once you have a joint venture, the account of such joint venture should be domiciled with the CBN. But, in this case, that was not what happened… This account has no BVN and there have been periodic withdrawals. The last withdrawal from that account was to the tune of $4 million. As I speak, the balance of that account, as at today (yesterday) is $137 million,” said Melaye.. Senate may debate the motion today.
