Oil sector may be next after arms deal probe – Amaechi

Oil sector may be next after arms deal probe –
Amaechi
. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi,
has said the oil sector may the next to be probed by
the Federal Government after the ongoing arms
deal.
.
Amaechi stated this on Thursday during a panel
session at a round-table discussion organised by
Business Eye in Lagos.
.
He indicated that the missing $49bn oil revenue,
which the former Governor of the Central Bank of
Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido, alleged that the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation did not remit into
the Federation Account, would be looked into.
He said, “Even before Sanusi and President Goodluck
Jonathan began to quarrel, I had to leak that letter.
.

Sanusi wrote that letter to the President in
September, I leaked it sometime in January, and that
letter was personal: ‘Mr. President, $49bn was
missing,’ and I got a copy of that letter.
“Instead of the Federal Government to say we are
going to address this, they began to debate with the
CBN governor and Nigerians join in the debate. Oh, it
is not possible. Now, they have seen that is possible.
I am sure this investigation going on, maybe when
they finish with arms deal, they will go to oil. You will
be seeing the stealing as it is going.”
.
Noting that the fall in global oil prices has posed a big
challenge for the country, Amaechi said the
benchmark oil price projected for this year budget
needed to be reduced.
The minister said, “We had assumed that if you
benchmark is at $38, we will be comfortable. But
now that oil price is $30, which means the National
Assembly must adjust the benchmark towards $20
something because if they leave it at $38, then
where will the money come from?
.
“In fact, our initial projection was $42, and the next
thing is that we saw the price coming down to $43.
So, we projected $38. So, we don’t know what will happen, and I won’t say it has bottomed out completely.”