• As EFCC vows to grill Jonathan’s ex-ministers, perm secs over Unremitted N450bn

California-based cruise line Princess Cruises, part of Carnival Corporation, has agreed to pay USD 40 million penalty – the largest-ever criminal penalty involving deliberate vessel pollution – and plead guilty to charges related to illegal dumping of oil-contaminated waste from the Caribbean Princess cruise ship.

The company has agreed to plead guilty to seven felony charges stemming from its deliberate pollution of the seas and intentional acts to cover it up, the US Department of Justice said.

The US investigation was initiated after information was provided to the US Coast Guard (USCG) by the British Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) indicating that a newly hired engineer on the Caribbean Princess reported that a so-called “magic pipe” had been used on August 23, 2013, to illegally discharge oily waste off the coast of England.

The engineer quit his position when the ship reached Southampton, England. The chief engineer and senior first engineer ordered a cover-up, including removal of the magic pipe and directing subordinates to lie. The MCA shared evidence with the USCG including before and after photos of the bypass used to make the discharge and showing its disappearance, the US Department of Justice said.

A perceived motive for the crimes was financial – the chief engineer that ordered the dumping off the coast of England told subordinate engineers that it cost too much to properly offload the waste in port and that the shore-side superintendent who he reported to would not want to pay the expense, the US Department of Justice said.

The USCG conducted an examination of the Caribbean Princess upon its arrival in New York City, New York, on September 14, 2013, during which certain crew members continued to lie in accordance with orders they had received from Princess employees, according to the country’s Department of Justice.

According to papers filed in court, the Caribbean Princess had been making illegal discharges through bypass equipment since 2005, one year after the ship began operations. The discharge on August 26, 2013, involved approximately 4,227 gallons, 23 miles off the coast of England within the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone. At the same time as the discharge, engineers simultaneously ran clean seawater through the ship’s overboard equipment in order to create a false digital record for a legitimate discharge.

Caribbean Princess used multiple methods over the course of time to pollute the seas. Prior to the installation of the bypass pipe used to make the discharge off the coast of England, a different unauthorized valve was used. When the US Department of Justice investigative team conducted a consensual boarding of the ship in Houston, Texas, on March 8, 2014, they found the valve that crew members had described. When it was removed by Princess at the department’s request, it was found to contain black oil.

In addition to the use of a magic pipe to circumvent the oily water separator and oil content monitor required pollution prevention equipment, the US investigation uncovered two other illegal practices which were found to have taken place on the Caribbean Princess as well as four other Princess ships.

One practice was to open a salt water valve when bilge waste was being processed by the oily water separator and oil content monitor. The purpose was to prevent the oil content monitor from otherwise alarming and stopping the overboard discharge. This was done routinely on the Caribbean Princess in 2012 and 2013. The second practice involved discharges of oily bilge water originating from the overflow of graywater tanks into the machinery space bilges. This waste was pumped back into the graywater system rather than being processed as oily bilge waste. Neither of these practices were truthfully recorded in the oil record book as required. All of the bypassing took place through the graywater system which was discharged when the ship was more than four nautical miles from land. As a result, discharges within US waters were likely, according to the Southern District of Florida, US Department of Justice.

“The conduct being addressed today is particularly troubling because the Carnival family of companies has a documented history of environmental violations, including in the Southern District of Florida,” Wifredo A. Ferrer, US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida in Miami said.

As part of the plea agreement with Princess, cruise ships from eight Carnival cruise line companies (Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Seabourn Cruise Line and AIDA Cruises) will be under a court-supervised Environmental Compliance Program (ECP) for five years. The ECP will require independent audits by an outside entity and a court-appointed monitor.

If approved by the court, USD 10 million of the USD 40 million criminal penalty will be devoted to community service projects to benefit the maritime environment, USD 3 million of the community service payments will go to environmental projects in South Florida and USD 1 million will be earmarked for projects to benefit the marine environment in United Kingdom waters.

The plea agreement was announced by the representatives of the Southern District of Florida in Miami, Florida and the US Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

In the meantime, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is set to grill some ex-ministers who served under the administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan as well as some serving and ex-permanent secretaries and directors of budget and finance in charge of revenue-generating Ministries Departments and Agencies, The PUNCH has learnt.

The fresh investigation, it was learnt, was sequel to a report by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, that the Federal Government would prosecute any official of revenue-generating agencies indicted in the audit report, which revealed that N450bn was not remitted to the Consolidated Revenue Fund Account.

The unremitted amount, which involved about 33 revenue-generating agencies of government, was for the 2010 to 2015 fiscal period which falls under the leadership of Jonathan.

Some of the agencies are the Central Bank of Nigeria, Nigeria Shippers’ Council, Nigerian Export Promotion Council, National Health Insurance Scheme, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and Nigerian Communications Commission.

Others are the Nigerian Postal Service, National Information Technology and Development Agency, Nigerian Television Authority, Bureau of Public Enterprises, National Pension Commission and Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc.

The list also has the Raw Materials Research and Development Council, Nigerian Ports Authority, Nigerian Export Processing Zones Authority, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, and the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria.

It was gathered that the commission would this week interrogate the affected officers, a majority of whom served between 2010 and 2015.

A source at the EFCC said, “We will invite the permanent secretaries of some of the agencies because the permanent secretaries are the chief accounting officers. We will also invite the directors of finance and budget in some of these agencies while the ministers that we believe may have approved such spending will also be invited.

“We discovered that many of these infractions had been taking place but never received much attention from the Federal Government because of the excess oil money during the Jonathan administration. Now that the Federal Government is cooperating fully with us, we will look into the matter thoroughly.

“We discovered that many agencies have never paid any money and never generated any operating surplus including some whose salaries, overheads and capital are paid by the Federal Government. In addition to that, they generate revenue which they spend without any form of control.”

The EFCC told our correspondent that many of the heads of the agencies were already under probe or were already being prosecuted.

The detective noted that a former Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, Patrick Akpobolokemi, and some directors of the agency were already being prosecuted for an alleged N34.5bn fraud.

The source at the EFCC said, “We are aware that money which was meant to be deposited into the Consolidate Revenue Fund Account was diverted while agencies were making extra-budgetary expenses. In some instances, such was done with the collusion of ministers.

“You are aware that a former Aviation Minister, Stella Oduah, gave approval to the NCAA to spend N255m on two cars. We have already charged her.’’

The National Assembly had argued that the 31 agencies listed as revenue-generating had their budgets shrouded in secrecy which had let to abuse.

World Maritime News with additional report from Punch