Witnesses Confirm NNPC’s Remittances

Fri, Mar 14, 2014

By publisher

3 MIN READ

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Witnesses who appeared before the Senate committee investigating the allegation that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation did not $20 billion into federation account absolved the corporation of any wrong doing

|  By Maureen Chigbo  |  Mar. 24, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT

THE Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, got a respite at the resumed sitting of the Senate Committee on Finance on Thursday, March 13, after being vilified over the alleged non-remittance of revenue from crude oil sales. Three institutions summoned by the committee over the alleged unremitted funds confirmed the NNPC’s claim of remittances to the federation account and third parties.

First to make a presentation was the office of the accountant-general of the federation, represented by Salawu Zubairu, director, fiscal, who told the committee that from the records, the NNPC had remitted all the amounts due to be remitted to the federation account within the period under review.

Zubairu’s testimony was followed by that of the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, whose submission was made by Alfred Ohiani, who affirmed that all royalties on crude oil lifting in the period under review was paid into the DPR account with the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The third parties, the JV partners namely, Total E&P and Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited represented by Chidi Momah and Olusegun Banwo, respectively also confirmed receiving the amounts stated by the NNPC during the period under review.

In his final presentation Andrew Yakubu, group managing director of the NNPC, reaffirmed that all equity holders in the oil and gas value chain including the federation account were duly paid their revenue between January 2012 and July 2013.

Yakubu commended the Senate for the opportunity to explain to Nigerians how the various streams of revenue flow from the oil and gas industry to the federation account and the other equity stakeholders involved in the petroleum business. “For us this is a wonderful opportunity to give a detailed account of what we do because like we always say, there is a huge misunderstanding about the industry. Today, we gave a clear and detailed breakdown of what we remitted to the Federation Account and to the Third parties which have been confirmed by all of them present here today,”  Yakubu said in a press release which was signed by Omar Farouk Ibrahim, acting group general manager, group public affairs division of the NNPC.

The NNPC boss solicited for collaboration with the media to correct the erroneous impression that money was missing, adding that the country needs direct foreign investment and negative reports send negative messages to prospective investors.

In his closing remarks, Ahmed Makarfi, chairman, Senate committee on finance, acknowledged the affirmations by the invited parties, adding that it would go into technical session to review all the presentations and come up with conclusions.