The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) did not remit N854 billion to the Federation Account between 2004-2008, Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed said in Abuja yesterday.
Speaking before the Joint House of Representatives Committees on Finance, Petroleum Up and Down stream and Gas which is investigating the non-remittance of N450 billion naira to the Federation Account by the NNPC, Ahmed said an audit report conducted by her agency on the remittance of revenue from the sales of domestic crude oil by the NNPC to the Federation Account revealed that NNPC had embarked on "unauthorised deductions on crude oil earnings".
She said, "We are reporting here today that we have details of what NNPC owes on month by month basis and we have discovered unauthorised deductions on subsidy and NNPC did not give any authority or circular on which the deductions are made. We had asked for subsisting circular authorising the deductions but were given none."
The NEITI scribe also said, "We have also discovered discrepancies and financial flaws in terms of what companies paid to the government and what the government received. Similarly, the exchange rate NNPC used to pay the government was different from the existing rate which put the Federation Account at a disadvantage by creating shortfalls for the Federation,"
The Nigeria Governor's Forum however shunned yesterday's public hearings, a situation the committee described as unfortunate "especially since they were the ones that raised the allegation of deductions of N450 billion naira by the NNPC from the Federation Account."
However, reacting with unusual speed to the allegation, NNPC said yesterday that the statement by NEITI's Executive Secretary was faulty.
Its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Dr. Levi Ajuonuma said the figure presented by the NEITI boss does not capture the nature of the transaction as well as the current realities on ground. He said it is obvious NEITI auditors failed to consider the peculiarities of the Corporation's business processes and the terms of our commercial transactions.
According to him, a principal term of the corporation's commercial arrangement is the credit period between crude sales and payments which the NEITI auditors did not capture. ``We are hopeful that when she concludes her presentation before the committee she will correct the error,'' Ajuonuma said.
He added, "Don't forget that what was presented is based on audit report of the Corporation's operations as at 31st December 2008 and since then things have changed. Essentially the N847 billion which the report captured represents the cost of crude purchased by the Corporation from the Federation for the months of September – December 2008, in addition to N450 billion under review.''
``In simple language I can state without any fear of contradiction that the sum in question has since been settled at the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, meetings of January, February, March and April 2009 as follows: January 12/13 2001 the amount was N134.76 billion, for February 12/13 2009 it was N106.83 billion, while March 13, 2009 it was N75.02 billion and April 16/17, 2009 it was N72.85 billion which total N389.5 billion."
Ajuonuma said NNPC would provide graphic details of the transaction on Thursday when it is billed to make a formal presentation at the Public Hearing. He also said there is no dispute between FAAC and NNPC about the final figure in contention, which remains at N450 billion.
DailyTrust