ABUJA—THE Senate was yesterday told that Nigeria has since June 2015, been exporting oil and non-oil products without documentation. This was just as it heard that the development has made the country lost over N23.6 billion expected repatriated proceeds of the export within the period. Similarly, the Senate alleged discovery of over $850 billion supposedly earned by the country between 1996 and 2014 from its crude oil export proceeds but yet to be repatriated to the country by the Joint Venture Oil Companies, a development it noted, was in total contravention of Nigeria’s Pre-shipment Inspection of Export Act and Article 26 of Export Policy Guidelines and procedures for crude oil, Gas and non-oil goods.
The revelations were made, yesterday, during an investigative public hearing organized by a Joint Committee of the Senate Committees on Finance, Trade and Investment, Gas, Petroleum Upstream, Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions, Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, and Customs, Excise and Tariff on the “Need to Investigate Pre Shipment Inspection of Export Activities in Nigeria. The public hearing was prompted by a motion moved on the floor of the Senate by Senator Abubakar Yusuf in July, 2016, where he alleged that there had been gross violation of the Pre-shipment Inspection of Export Act by certain institutions of government.
A deputy director in the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment, Usman Ndanusa, who represented the ministry at the investigative public hearing, disclosed that the country had since June 2015, been exporting its oil and non-oil products without measurement and documentation.
He said the development followed the disengagement of pre-shipment inspection agents at the various export terminals in the country and their subsequent replacement with agents who were merely asked by the federal government without legal and constitutional backing to carry out the pre-shipment work at the terminals.
Vangaurd
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