Yemisi Izuora/Ijeoma Agudosi
The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) has revealed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is yet to remit to the Federation Account the sum of N4.9 trillion and not N3.2 trillion as stated in the auditor general’s report last week.
The commission’s spokesperson, Mr. Ibrahim Mohammed, said in a statement that the RMAFC observed that the figure of N3.2 trillion was from the 2014 annual audit report obtained from the records of the FAAC Technical Sub-Committee on Domestic Crude Oil Sales and reconciliation statement as contained in the NNPC’s mandate to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
It said records at the commission’s disposal indicated that between January 2011 and December 2015, the total indebtedness of the NNPC to the Federation Account was N4.9 trillion, a figure that included NNPC’s claims for subsidy on petroleum products, crude and product losses, strategic reserves and the pipeline maintenance cost.
Mohammed said while the said report claimed that NNPC owed the sum of N3.2 trillion to the Federation Account in 2014 from domestic crude sale, the commission’s records differed.
Their record showed that the corporation owed the Federation Account the sum of N1.99 trillion in 2014 from domestic crude sales.
Therefore, the figure quoted by the Auditor-General of the Federation must have included revenues from other sources.
With regards to the alleged payment of US$235 million realised from the sale of natural gas into undisclosed Escrow Accounts by the NNPC, the commission explained that the NNPC on behalf of the NLNG had entered into agreement with three International Oil Companies (IOCs) i.e. Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC), Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) and Total E & P Nigeria Limited (TEPNG) under a Modified Carry Agreement (MCA) proceeds from which were deposited in Escrow Accounts for funding the various Gas projects under the LONG.
“The total amount transferred to the various accounts from 2012 to November 2015 was $1.615 billion. The commission, through the FAAC post mortem, has consistently requested the NNPC to provide it with updated financial statements on the projects but NNPC was yet to respond,” the report said.
It would be recalled that the commission had been working with NNPC to reconcile the figures following a tripartite meeting held with the NNPC, the Federal Ministry of Finance (FMF) and RMAFC in December, 2015 where it was agreed that in view of the subsidy and other claims by NNPC, the forensic audit of the NNPC was very critical in establishing which party was actually indebted to the other.
The forensic audit was expected to be concluded by the end of March, 2016 to ascertain the tree figure in contention.
However, the NNPC in a recent response on the issues, said the only outstanding amount with it was N326.14 billion which all the stakeholders at the FAAC meeting were familiar with and it was already in the public domain.
The corporation in a statement by its Group Executive Director/Chief Financial Officer (Finance and Accounts), Isiaka Abdulrazaq, also claimed that the Federation Account actually owed it (corporation) N1.374 trillion.
“This is currently being reviewed by FMF appointed forensic auditors at the instance of the Honourable Minister of Finance.”