The Federal Government announced the appointment of Price WaterHouse and the Auditor-General of the Federation to undertake task of forensic auditing of the alleged missing oil money worth $20 billion.
This was disclosed on Thursday by the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and the Federal Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, at a panellist discussion on the topic: “Africa Rising’’ at the ongoing 24th World Economic Forum on Africa, in Abuja.
Okonjo-Iweala said the auditing exercise which started last week, would be carried out within a period of 16 weeks..
“The issue of holding government to account, I don’t think Nigerians are laying back. We need that transparency and we welcome it.
“The (suspended) CBN Governor raised issues on unaccounted amount from the federation account.
“We at the ministry of finance have for two years been reconciling these figures with the NNPC to know what they are supposed to remit to the federation account.
“Our feeling is that the only way is to have a forensic audit that would let Nigerians know the truth on the issue.
“There is a forensic audit that the government has approved, and it is being done by PwC under the supervision of the Auditor-General for the Federation.
“The auditors said they need 12 to 16 weeks to do that, and all these would be clarified,’’ she said.
