By Luka Binniyat

KADUNA— Former governor of Kaduna State and Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, said yesterday that the last may not have been heard of the alleged missing $20 billion, as the Senate would have a final say on the matter.

He told newsmen in Kaduna: “I will not want to say that our report is the final report because certain recommendations in the report are interim ones. There is an ongoing forensic audit and we said that will consider the outcome of the forensic audit.

“Where there was dispute was between the figure of $20 billion and $10.8 billion. Even that dispute was not that it was really missing. What has been done with that money? Nobody said at that time that the money was missing.

“Out of the $20 billion, over $5 billion was spent on payments for petroleum products. We tried to find out whether that money was appropriated; we checked the budgets of the relevant years and we found out that the National Assembly appropriated the money and it was expended.

“So if the National Assembly appropriated the money for it to be expended, you cannot talk of money missing.
“A party alleged that the money was not remitted to the federation account. If it was not remitted to the federation account, it can be hanging in one account or the other. We were to find out where that money was. We took the larger figure of $20 billion, not $10.8 billion to see what happened to the money.”

On insecurity, Makarfi blamed the growing rate of unemployment, saying that the twin problems posed serious threat to the country’s democracy and the nation itself.
The former governor said it would be wrong for anybody to think that Nigerians were happy with the present state of things.