The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has raised objection to the allegation of fraud against it by former Head of State and presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd).
A statement issued by the corporation’s Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ohi Alegbe, described Buhari’s allegation as “political mischief.”
The statement said, “It is sad that Gen. Buhari, one of the founding fathers of the NNPC, who has had a taste of the virulent but false allegations deliberately concocted to cast the corporation and the public sector management of the nation’s oil and gas industry in bad light, would be the one to allege that NNPC runs two sets of account books ‘one for public consumption and another for insiders’.
“We consider Gen. Buhari’s allegation in bad taste as it is nothing but a deliberate political mischief calculated to cast the corporation in opprobrium, all in a bid to shore up his political capital.
“We find it difficult to understand how a former Head of State who has also served as Minister of Petroleum Resources could believe that NNPC keeps two sets of account books to perpetrate fraud, knowing that NNPC is the most audited and scrutinised agency in the country.”
The corporation argued that in the past one year, its books had been scrutinised and audited by the Senate Committee on Finance and an external auditor, PriceWaterhouseCooper.
It said, “Is it possible for the accounting discrepancies insinuated by Gen. Buhari to escape the attention of such internationally acclaimed auditors? And in any case, why would an alleged fraudulent corporation keep two sets of accounting books knowing that such could be used as evidence against it?
“We hereby state emphatically that NNPC neither keeps two sets of account books nor is aware of the existence of such as the corporation is run in line with international best practice.”
Source: Punch
