The Nigerian Senate Public Accounts Committee has relied on a 2016 report of the Auditor-General, to query Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over the non-remittance of ₦4.076trillion into the Federation Account.
Following the development, the NNPC and the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation, on Tuesday, disagreed over the non-remittance of ₦4.076trillion into the Federation Account.
The Auditor-General, in the report, had said that a cumulative total of ₦4.076 trillion operational proceeds made between 2010 and 2015 was unremitted to the Federation Account by NNPC as of 31st December 2016.
But the NNPC, in a written response as indicated in the report, said the money was arrived at without taking cognizance of the subsidy and pipeline repairs and management associated with domestic crude oil transaction.
At the hearing of the Senate Public Accounts Committee yesterday, NNPC Chief Finance Officer (CFO), Umar Ajiya, reiterated the claim, saying that it was impossible to hide such magnitude of money anywhere.
He said the ₦4 trillion was expended on pipeline repairs, domestic fuel supplies which were heavily subsidized, security and management matters.
But Olutoye Agesin, a Director of Public Accounts in the Office of Auditor-General for the Federation, said NNPC did not provide a breakdown of how the money spent while responding to the query.
Ajiya said the response to the query had been sufficiently made in the forensic audit conducted later, reports of which were forwarded to the Office of the Auditor-General and the Senate committee.
‘The forensic audit has been done, the Auditor-General has a copy of the forensic audit. At the end of the day, that forensic audit established that NNPC was owing about ₦797billion but also, on the other hand, the federation was also owing NNPC. The net effect was that the NNPC was being owed ₦239billion. So, there is nothing like N4 trillion withheld by NNPC.
‘The books are with the CBN, you can’t hide ₦4tr anywhere. It has gone through the consumption of PMS and that is why everybody has to be involved with respect to deregulation,’ Ajiya explained.
Again, while admitting that a copy of the forensic report was received by Auditor-General’s office, said: ‘₦4trillion is not a small amount of money that can just be said to be spent on pipeline repairs and oil subsidy within five years.
‘Line by line details of such spendings ought to have been made in the NNPC’s response to the query.’
Interestingly most members of the committee like Senators Ayo Akinyelure (PDP, Ondo Central), Ibrahim Abdullahi (PDP, Sokoto South), Suleiman Kwari (APC, Kaduna North), supported the representative of the Auditor-General, asking the NNPC CFO to give detailed accounts of how the money was spent.
Consequently, the Vice Chairman of the Committee, Senator Ibrahim Hassan Hadejia (APC, Jigawa North East), directed the Chief Finance Officer of NNPC to furnish the committee with the required details within a week, upon which the query will be vacated or sustained.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK