Senate Never Cleared Diezani Alison-Madueke, NNPC Over Missing $20b – Saraki

Chairman of Senate Committee on Ecology and Environment, Senator Bukola Saraki, denied media reports that the Senate Committee on Finance had cleared the Minister of Petroleum Diezani Alison-Madueke and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over the alleged missing $20billion.

On Thursday, May 29, Saraki, who is also a member of the Finance Committee, said nothing significant has changed that might have suggested the clearing of the minister and the NNPC.

According to him, even though the report of the committee has been laid before the Senate, more was still being done to unravel the missing money.

Saraki's media aide, Bamikole Omishore, who issued a statement in Abuja urged the media to wait for the official release of the report to the public before jumping to conclusions.

The statement reads: "The recent media reports claiming that the Senate Committee on Finance has cleared NNPC of any unaccounted revenue fund are not true.

"Though I could not attend the last meeting of the committee, I have been very active in the investigation, nothing significant has changed to suggest clearing of anybody.

"I can say on behalf of the committee that these media reports bear no correlation to the content of the Senate Committee report and I would urge the public to disregard it in its entirety.

"The committee is yet to receive the report on the forensic audit and independent analysis on the subject clearly indicates we have a lot of grounds to cover in order to determine the level of culpability or otherwise of agency on the alleged non-committal, so to suggest any clearance for anybody at this stage is out of the question.

"I will further advise that the media should wait for the Senate to release the details of the committee report to the public before they jump into spurious conclusions."

Source: Legit.ng