The Federal Government said it has recovered N29 billion out of the N232 billion fraudulently claimed by petrol marketers.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, dropped the hint in Abuja on Monday.
Ms.
Okonjo-Iweala, who spoke during a roundtable at the ongoing Nigerian
Economic Conference, said the amount was recovered from some marketers
who defrauded the Federal Government in the oil subsidy payment scheme.
The
minister maintained that the recovery exercise was part of government’s
determination to fight corrupt practices in the oil and gas sector.
“Now
of the N232 billion that has been put forward as fraudulent claims,
some of those marketers said government owed them money. We are right
now able to hold N29 billion of that.
“So
instead of paying them, we are recovering what they owe us. So, my
single hope is that out of this, we have recovered virtually that amount
of about N29 billion and we are looking to recover the balance of the
total.
“Some of these people are being chased and prosecuted and the EFCC and ICPC are still investigating this,” she said.
The minister said that about 50 marketers were being investigated over the subsidy scam.
She
attributed the slow pace of payment of the subsidy claims, to
marketers, to the ongoing verification and thorough scrutiny of such
claims by relevant agencies.
Ms. Okonjo-Iweala said that only genuine claims of oil marketers would be entertained.
“We
have never stopped paying because all these issues about queues and so
on, of course sometimes the marketers have said unless you pay us, we
are not going to bring in oil.
“But
we have not yielded to any of that kind of stress or even blackmail, we
have continued to do our work and we will continue to pay those who are
clean,” she said.
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