The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has said the Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation, NNPC cannot account for 20 billion dollars.
Appearing before the Senate Committee on Finance to discuss the crude oil monies allegedly Sanusi provided a summary of funds that have been received by the Central Bank and the irregularities they have identified.
He said records from the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, showed that the 16 billion dollars paid into the FIRS account was by International Oil Companies, IOCs and not by the NNPC and were proceeds from crude lifted in the name of the NNPC, but sold on behalf of the FIRS.
He also said that the Directorate of Petroleum Resources, DPR, received 1.6 billion dollars from the IOCs, while the NNPC has also repratriated 16 billion dollars out of the 28 billion dollars domestic crude it shipped.
He reminded the committee that the CBN has accounted for all the monies that it has received, which is 47 billion dollars, out of the 67 billion dollars that the NNPC shipped.
He disagreed with the NNPC’s explanation that some of the remaining 20 billion Dollars does not belong to the Federation. He argued that some of the 6 billion dollars crude said to belong to the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited (NPDC) is shipped from oil wells that belong to the Federation.
He also stated that the Central Bank is asking NNPC to provide their authority for buying Kerosine at 150 Naira from the Federation account and selling at 40 Naira, thereby inflicting a loss on Nigeria, when there had been a presidential directive eliminating subsidy since 2009.
He revealed that the NNPC had always submitted its monthly reports which has consistently shown that it had deducted nothing for PMS subsidy since April 2012. He then wondered how the NNPC came about telling the CBN that deductions were being made.
He maintained that NNPC shipped 67billion dollars in crude and only 47 billion dollars has come back to the Federation. Therefore, the NNPC has to prove where the 20billion dollars is.
The Chairman of the Committee however noted that there was nothing new about the content of the presentation by the CBN Governor, as those details and the stance of the Central Bank were already known.
He however said that every year in the revenue framework, the National Assembly appropriates money for oil subsidy. Therefore, the question of whether the NNPC deducted it or that they did so late is not an indication that there was no money appropriated for subsidy on PMS.
He expected the NNPC to make their own presentation and noted that “the bottomline is that the Federation should not lose one cent.”
The meeting was adjourned till 10am on Thursday February 13, 2014.
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