House of Reps [Photo: Twitter - @HouseNGR]The House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating allegedly
missing $17 billion crude oil and liquified natural gas revenue, on
Monday said it uncovered $15 billion unremitted revenue into Federation
Account.
The trace of the alleged missing fund believed to have been stolen
and diverted to a foreign destination, was contained in the two
documents submitted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation,
NNPC, at the committee’s sitting.
While responding to questions from members of the committee, Rabiu
Bello, NNPC’s Chief Operating Officer, COO, admitted that there were
discrepancies in the documents.
In his presentation earlier, Jack Ukitetu, a Director in the Central
Bank of Nigeria, CBN who represented the bank’s governor, explained that
the Accountant-General of the Federation approved and determined the
money accrued to the Excess Crude Account.
Mr. Ukitetu said that before 2006, the CBN collected the money on
behalf of government’s agencies and remitted into the Federal Reserve
Account in New York and charged 0.25 per cent.
He, however, added that after 2006, the oil companies paid directly what was due to the government.
On commissions being collected by the apex bank, the director told
the lawmakers that the CBN collected 0.25 per cent via foreign exchange
allocation and did not charge the federal government as deduction were
made from central sales.
Meanwhile, Waziri Adio, Executive Secretary of Nigerian Extractive
Industry Transparency Initiative, NEITI, who had accused NNPC and CBN of
misleading the ad hoc committee, pleaded to withdraw the earlier
documents submitted.
He, however, pledged to submit “more damaging documents” on the
alleged crude oil theft to the committee on Wednesday “which will help
in unearthing the unremitted revenue accrued from oil and gas but not
remitted”.
Speaking earlier, the chairman of the committee, Abdulrazak Namdas,
said that the committee would not hesitate to submit its report to the
House without the inputs of major Ministries, Departments and Agencies
(MDAs) which failed to honour the committee’s invitation.
Toward this, the committee mandated the CBN and NNPC to submit the
audited report of the oil and gas account showing the remitted funds
into the Federation Account between 2011 and 2014.
The NNPC was also directed to submit the Bill of Laden relating to
the 974,721 barrels of crude oil lifted on October 20, 2011 and 961,963
barrels lifted on October 10, 2011.
It also included 974, 935 barrels lifted on July 9, 2011 and 974,953 barrels lifted on July 18, 2011 but were not declared.
The lawmakers also requested for report of the reconciliation
conducted by NNPC and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) as well as
the list of oil off-takers for 2013 and 2014.
Similarly, NNPC is expected to provide details of the companies that
paid oil tax between 2011 and 2014 as well as the Letter of Credits
(LCs) of all the monies paid into the Federation Account within the
period.
(NAN)
0 comments:
Post a Comment