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No Case Of Corruption Against Pef Boss, Mrs. Sharon Adefunke Kasali by Deshola: 6:55pm On Aug 14, 2011 |
Late last week, on the 11th and 12th August 2011, the media were awash with the claim that Mrs. Sharon Adefunke Kasali, the Executive Secretary of Petroleum Equalisation Fund was arrested and detained by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the EFCC in connection with economic and financial crimes and corrupt practices. For the records, we wish to state that, contrary to the report, Mrs. Kasali was not arrested and is not being detained in connection with any alleged commission of crimes. She was invited by the EFCC for questioning as were four other staff before her, and all were allowed to go home. During her questioning, Mrs. Kasali was confronted with an anonymous and unsigned petition written, by a so-called Concerned PEF Staff. She made a statement; fill in an Asset Declaration Form; and was requested to surrender her international passports. She was granted bail in her own self-recognizance, and allowed to go home. In consequence, Mrs. Kasali canceled her scheduled vacation trip. Refuting the allegations against her: Three key allegations were hauled against her in an anonymous and unsigned petition: TENURE QUESTION: The first leg in the petition was that Mrs. Kasali’s tenure as the Executive Secretary of PEF is over, and that contrary to “procedure”, she has refused to hand-over to the most senior General Manager in PEF. It was claimed that a petition against her stay in office beyond her tenure had been sent to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Petroleum, and that the Permanent Secretary had set up an investigation panel headed by a senior official in the Ministry to investigate the Petition. For the avoidance of any doubt, the position of Executive Secretary of PEF is not a tenured position under the Statute establishing the agency. Mrs. Kasali was appointed to her current position four years ago, in April 2007, for an unspecified period of time. Very instructively, her predecessor in office was in that position for eleven (11) unbroken years. Mrs. Kasali helped clarified that misunderstanding. BANK ACCOUNTS: The second allegation in the petition is that the sum of N400 million was found in Mrs. Kasali’s personal bank accounts and that the sums of N50 million and N30 million were found in some other accounts linked to her. This being untrue, Mrs. Kasali said she operates two personal bank accounts and the combined total amount of funds in the accounts is below N4 million, out of which N1.6 Million is a rent, just collected on a property jointly owned with her husband. It was possible it wasn’t her account they had in view, she told them. NGO FUNDING: The last allegation falsely flung at her was that Mrs. Kasali forces oil marketers to make donations to Diamond Lights Women Empowerment Initiative. Diamond Lights Empowerment Initiative is an NGO founded by Mrs. Kasali in 2005 (two clear years before she got her present appointment) out of her conviction that indigent young women from all works of life needed empowerment. The objective of Diamond Lights is to assist young women in removing circumstantial limitations placed on them by society. Diamond Lights is not a front for money laundering. http://diamondlights.org/index.php Though she is the founder, Mrs. Kasali does not personally run the organization as alleged. In the past six years, over 150 young ladies have enjoyed scholarships into various tertiary institutions in Nigeria. This NGO is funded via contributions from individuals, private organizations and multinationals. And right from its inception to date, the total amount of monetary donation made to the organization is not in excess of N15 million. The 2010 audited account of Diamond Light Empowerment Initiative is thus available for review. Typically, the hidden petitioners have no reference of any such bank accounts they have made claims to, thus begging the question into what accounts have the alleged donations of the oil marketers to the organization been paid? The Hidden Agenda: Before Mrs. Kasali was appointed the Executive Secretary of PEF, the organization had a history of failing to pay oil marketers the transportation differentials for petroleum products movement from depots to their sales outlets in order to ensure a uniform national product pricing. Thus, it was a norm that marketers were owed for upward of nine months. That has now been address under the Kasali dispensation. Today, oil marketers are being paid for liftings made in June 2011. The removal of this fraudulent process has certainly not gone well with many stakeholders but the question is: when then did it become a crime to pay oil marketers as the statute of PEF demands? We challenge any oil marketer with proof of any inducement to Mrs. Kasali to please come forward and say so. Not satisfied with a transparent corridor in the new operational regime at the PEF, outright false claims have been spurned that Mrs. Kasali used proxies to set up companies to which she selectively awarded contracts from PEF. Truth is that all the contracts awarded by the PEF under Mrs. Kasali have followed due process. Advertorials were placed in the media calling for tenders of bids. The Board of the PEF publicly announces bid winners after going through a rigorous screening exercise. The calculation of those hunting Mrs. Kasali is that once she is sufficiently demonized or scandalized in the public, and tainted with allegation of corruption, she would either resign in anger and frustration, or be removed from office by an overwhelmed Government. The case of a former Minister of Health, Professor Adenike Grange and the ex commissioners of the National Electricity Regulatory Commission, who were charged by the EFCC to court for corruption but cleared for want of evidence, are instructive precedents in this regard. In both cases, the damage had been done before their exoneration. This conspiracy has practically done everything both physical and metaphysical in the last four years to get rid of Mrs. Kasali. At a point, owing to threats to her life, Mrs. Kasali had to seek extra police protection from the office of the Inspector-General of Police. The grouse of this conspiracy is that the institution is a cash cow, and that Mrs. Kasali’s ethical standards and uprightness is an obstacle to corrupt enrichment. As Executive Secretary, Mrs. Kasali was compelled to introduce an e-loading system titled “Project Aquila” to checkmate the corrupt practice of presentation of fictitious claims by marketers. Before her tenure, the practice that was rife was that some marketers would sell their products at the depots, and yet present bridging cost claims that they “incurred” in transporting products to their retail outlets in far-flung places all over the Country. Through that fraudulent practice, the Federal Government of Nigeria was losing billions of naira. This is what is known as “bridging by air”. Apart from ensuring a tighter claims verification regime, Project Aquila will also help deal in eliminating corruption and ensuring prompt payment of bridging cost. Under this system, presentations of fake claims and other inefficiencies will be eliminated. Apart from introducing the e-payment and e-loading systems, Mrs. Kasali also initiated a process that led to the computation of money owed petroleum marketers between 2004 and 2008, totaling N17.4 billion and took swift action to ensure that the outstanding amounts were paid. Her administration put in place a regulation that bridging costs claims by marketers are time-barred, and must be presented within nine months; otherwise the claims will lapse. Except on exceptional grounds and for proven justifiable and good reasons for delay in presentation of claims outside the nine-month period, PEF has upheld this regulation. Finally, we wish to assure the Federal Government of Nigeria that has given Mrs. Sharon Adefunke Kasali an opportunity to serve her fatherland and contribute to her development, that all these allegations are the work of political prostitutes seeking to capture presumed juicy official executive positions. To be sure, the season is ripe for the hungry political marauders who are now on the prowl, and for who the reputation and integrity of their targets will not be hallowed grounds on a wrecking mission. Getting to know Mrs. Sharon Adefunke Kasali. Mrs. Sharon Adefunke Kasali is a chartered accountant of international repute. In 1986, she completed a Bachelor degree in Business Administration & Accounting from Texas Southern University and obtained a Master of Business Administration in Finance and MIS in University of Houston , Graduate School of Business in 1991. She was certified as a public accountant the same year. She started her work career in the United States of America with the globally renowned accounting organization, Arthur Andersen. She later joined Exxon Mobil in the United States . She was later transferred to Mobil Africa. She worked in Nigeria, France and Kenya and rose to the position of East Africa Regional Director of Finance, Exxon Mobil Africa. At the Zenith of her work, there, she had seven Finance Directors reporting to her. She left Exxon Mobil in 2004 and joined Nigeria Sao Tome Principe Joint Development Authority as Deputy Director Audit. It was from this position she was appointed to the position of Executive Secretary PEF in March 2007. Signed Jiti Ogunye Jiti Ogunye Chambers Lagos |
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