New Telegraph

Reps summon Kyari, Emefiele over N3.235bn non-remittance

The House of Representatives has summoned the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Mele Kyari and Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele over a non-remittance of N3.235 trillion ($19.253 billion) revenue accrued from sales of domestic crude oil in 2014. Chairman, House committee on Public Accounts, Hon. Wole Oke, issued the directive yesterday following audit queries issued by the office of the Auditor General of the Federation (oAuGF) for the period under review.

 

It would be recalled that the NNPC GMD had a fortnight ago failed to honour the invitation sent to him penultimate week, on the illegal withdrawals of $20.301 billion from the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Dividends account.

 

According to the details of the query, oAuGF observed that from the “examination of NNPC mandates to CBN on Domestic Crude Oil Sales and Reconciliation Statement of Technical Committee of Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting held in January, 2014 that a total sum of N3,234,577,666,791.35 was not remitted to the Federation Account by NNPC within the period under review.”

 

The oAuGF findings further showed that, the “cost estimated for crude and product losses was N55,964,682,158.99 which is about 50 per cent of pipeline management cost of N110,402,541,010.88, names of contractors, location and amount paid to each for the pipeline Maintenance were not sighted for audit verification.

 

“Over 31% (N826, 506,271,231.26 divided by N2,636,390,514,777.18 multiply by 100 per cent) of the realized crude sales for the year were earmarked as other expenses apart from direct cost of productions stated in NNPC reports for the year 2014.

 

The breakdown of other expenses was not provided for audit. “From the above analysis, it means that the Federation Account is losing 31 per cent (N826,506,271,231.26) being additional estimated cost from the total amount that should have accrue to Federation Account.

 

“From the total revenue of N3,234,577,666,791.35 as at 14th January, 2015 payable to the Federation Account by NNPC during the year, the Corporation deducted the sum of N826,506,271,231.26) i.e N660,139,048,061.39, N55,964,682,158.99 and N110,402,541,010.88) for subsidy estimate, crude and product losses and pipeline management cost) respectively at source thereby resulting to net amount withheld figure of N2,408,041,395,560.33 shown in the above table to the Federation Account.

 

All these deductions at source by NNPC were not approved by FAAC,” the audit query read in part. While requesting the Accountant General of the Federation to inform the NNPC Group Managing Director to explain the flagrant attitude of withholding domestic crude oil sales revenue by NNPC which should be refunded immediately, the oAuGF observed that there was no positive response on similar issue raised in 2012

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