With persistent prodding and questioning, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) yesterday bowed to the House of Representatives, promising to open its books for scrutiny and improve its revenue remittance to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.
The corporation, which had earlier shunned the House Committee on Finance, however, turned up yesterday apologising. NNPC Group Director of Finance, Mr. Benard Oti, pleaded for more time to put the corporation to its records together. NNPC did not, however, appear with its 17 subsidiaries as requested by the House committee.
The committee blamed the deficit of N1trillion in the 2013 budget on failure by NNPC to fully declare its earnings. Addressing the meeting, chairman of the committee, Abdulmumin Jibrin, noted that the committee had been able to conclude on almost all the 60 agencies, except NNPC. Jibrin said: "One of the areas of disagreement is the group account by NNPC and the independent accounts of the subsidiaries."
During the meeting, Oti, who claimed that NNPC is operating at a loss, said that there is hardly no linkages on the impact of pipeline vandalism. "The financial loss from vandalisation is a huge burden on the corporation," he added.
At earlier meetings on the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF), Jibrin, who reckoned that Nigeria could do better with internally generated revenue (IGR), disclosed that the chunk of money the country needs is lying with the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).
Jibrin pointed out that NNPC had never remitted a dime to the Federal Government, while some MDAs have complied with the relevant authority by remitting a good percentage of their earnings to government's account.
He said: "NNPC has never, I repeat, never remitted a kobo to the Federal Government. We calculated from 2009 and realised that NNPC generates over N6 trillion. We have always tried to get NNPC for some explanations, but they would not show up.
It took a bench warrant to get the Group Managing Director (GMD), Andrew Yakubu, to appear before the House, and when he did, he told us the usual story that NNPC had been operating at a loss."
Jibrin, who observed that only about four of NNPC's subsidiaries operate at a loss, hinted that the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), an organ of the NNPC, generates robust revenue. He said: "In 1999 alone, the gross revenue of NPDC stood at N101 billion.
Its tax amounted to N64 billion and its profit after tax (PAT) stood at N15 billion." After consulting with members of the committee, Jibrin mandated the management of NNPC to appear with the 17 subsidiaries next Tuesday by 2 p.m.
National Mirror