NNPC yet to remit N142.7bn revenue –Reps

•Lawmakers give GMD March 19 deadline to appear

From IHEANACHO NWOSU, Abuja

The House of Representatives Committee on Finance said yesterday that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is owing the Federal Government N142.7billion, being unremitted Internally Generated revenue (IGR) between 2009 and last year.

The debt, it said, was in disregard to the 2007 Fiscal Responsibility Act, which stipulates that all revenues generated by government agencies must be remitted to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF). Chairman of the Committee, Hon.Abdulmunin Jibrin disclosed this during an interactive session with the revenue generating agencies of the Federal Government.

Miffed by this development, the committee gave the Group Managing Director (GMD), Andrew Yakubu, till next Tuesday, March 19 to appear before it or risk being compelled to place a warrant of arrest on him as provided by the 1999 Constitution. Apart from Yakubu, the committee also summoned the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas Company as well as the entire 16 subsidiaries of the corporation to appear before it on Monday next week.

Lamenting that the country had been allegedly shortchanged by the NNPC and its subsidiaries, Jibrin said that the corporation was initially hostile to a technical committee set up by the House to examine its transactions and account. According to him, “our biggest challenge has been the NNPC, but as a committee, we have resolved that whatever we have to do within the confines of the law, NNPC must be made to pay the money.

“We have said it before that the NNPC has never remitted anything under her IGR to the CRF. In 2009, the corporation generated N2.048 trillion as its Internally Generated Revenue. It made N2.155 trillion in 2010 while N1.9trillion was realized in 2011. By July of 2012, the corporation made N259billion as its IGR. Between 2009 and 2012, the corporation remitted nothing out of the N6, 132,347,524,154 it generated to the CRF as demanded by law.”

He explained that to ascertain what was due to the Federal Government was not lost to either fraud or inefficiency, the committee set up a technical group to examine the books of the corporation and its 16 subsidiaries. He said, “on the first day, our members were shut out of the complex and refused access to the records up till this moment, but we were persistent and determined.

Eventually, we were able to scrutinize the books through some other means where we found out that among them, a profit of N98, 360,658 was made”. Jibrin stressed that from analysis, all the subsidiaries of the NNPC were posting profits except for seven companies that included the three oil refineries. He said, “from our calculations of 80 per cent surplus, N78, 688,558 is what the NNPC and its subsidiaries are supposed to pay to the CRF as backlog of IGR between 2009 and 2011.

From its figures for 2012, the corporation is to pay N64billion to government coffers”. The lawmaker stressed that the four subsidiary companies of the NNPC had their figures denominated in dollars. “Their total profit for the period under review is $20billion and were supposed to remit $16billion or 80 per cent of their operating surplus.”

He maintained, “another offshore subsidiary, Duke Oil Service, UK, made a profit of £107,545 and have to pay £86,036 as its IGR. We wrote NNPC just as any other agency to appear and none of the agencies invited showed up except the NNPC.

And from our records, all of them have started complying by paying what they owed the Federal Government. “When every agency concerned has been paying, why is NNPC refusing to pay? Even if you claim to have other expenditures, the rules are clear, you have to remit a certain part of the surplus to the government and your expenditure must be within the confines of your own income.

“The answer is, however, obvious, the non-appearance of NNPC is not a surprise to the committee because the facts and figures speak for themselves. But as a committee, we will not allow this money to go, NNPC must pay this money because they have no reason why it can not be paid.

We are going to look at the records of all subsidiaries of NNPC independently and they are to appear before the committee next Monday 18, March 2013,” he said.