THE House of Representatives, on Sunday, disclosed that the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) shortpaid the Federal Government to the tune of N320.654 billion in its dealings on oil and gas revenues, paying N1.516 trillion to the Federation Account instead of N1.837 trillion.
The chairman, House Committee on Finance, Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin, who revealed this on Sunday in a statement tagged: “Petroleum Minister/NNPC: A shady regime of oil and gas management,” said the NNPC must come clean on its operations and remittances to the Federation Account.
Honourable Jibrin, who faulted release of figures of crude oil sales allegedly totalling $20.9 billion for the first seven months of 2013 by the NNPC, said the corporation was only “pushing out sham details as regards operations in the oil and gas sector, andhad become worse under Diezani Alison-Madueke, current Minister of Petroleum Resources.”
According to him, “Nigerians are not as keen on crude oil sales figures as the actual remittances from NNPC to the Federation Account. The amount remitted to the Federal Government is more important and NNPC should have been more honest to present the figures so that Nigerians can understand what actually accrued.
“From January to September 2013, the Federation was expected to earn N1.837 trillion (or N204.168 billion per month) from the sale of crude oil and gas marketed by the NNPC with the Petroleum Minister as its board chairperson.
“It should be noted that this is after taking into consideration payments for Joint Venture Cash calls (ie, cost of production) and petrol subsidy payments. However, only N1.516 trillion has been remitted to the government by the NNPC, showing a shortfall of N320.654 billion for the period.
“Again, it should be noted that this is actual revenue generated at the prevailing market rate of crude oil and gas. The budget for fiscal year 2013 was based on $79 per barrel, whereas the price has hardly fallen below $100 per barrel for the whole year. This implies that even though we are receiving well above the benchmark on our crude oil and gas sales, we are not meeting our targets because our crude oil production has fallen well below budgeted estimates as a result of massive crude oil theft and unabated corruption in the oil and gas sector.”
Source: Tribune
