CBN Governors Raises Another Alarm On Missing $20b At NNPC

 

GOVERNOR of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mallam Lamido Sanusi, on Tuesday, alleged that the amount due to the Federation Account but which remained  unremitted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) amounts to $20 billion.

Sanusi, who stated this during a hearing by the Senate Committee on Finance into allegation of missing $49.8 billion revenue, said the funds were yet to be paid into the Federation Account by the NNPC.

The amount rose from the initial $10.8 billion mentioned by the Minister of Finance as the amount being reconciled by the parties in the oil sector.

According to Sanusi, the total oil lifting by the NNPC amounted to $67 billion, whereas all the payments the bank had got amounted to $47 billion.

But the Group Managing Director (GMD) of NNPC, Andrew Yakubu, also at the Senate hearing, said the CBN governor apparently made the allegation in error, adding that Sanusi did not understand how the NNPC worked.

According to the GMD, the CBN governor had erroneously lumped some intakes together, adding that some of the intakes belonged to the National Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) being operated by private firms.

“CBN is a banking outfit, so I really, really understand why they will not understand some petroleum engineering issues and they are not also an auditing outfit.

“Now what they try to do is to audit and I heard some statements made here that they do not have this document, they don’t have that document.

“They are not the auditors. We have certified bodies and arms of agencies that are charged with the responsibility of auditing,” he said.

Sanusi had told the finance committee headed by Senator Ahmed Makarfi that “we have looked at FIRS numbers and we have confirmed that $16 billion paid by international oil companies to the FIRS account was not paid by the NNPC but paid by IOCs. It was the proceeds of crude lifted in the name of NNPC but sold on behalf  of FIRS.

“That $16 billion had been confirmed by FIRS and had accepted. There is $1.6 billion that DPR also received from IOCs which was part of that crude and which CBN had accepted.

“We have provided evidence in the naira crude account out of the $28 billion domestic crude shipped by the NNPC, it had repatriated $16 billion.

“Out of the $67 billion that has accrued to the NNPC account, we have accounted for $47 billion. Out of the $67 billion that the NNPC shipped, $47 billion had been repatriated to the CBN. What we are talking about is the balance of the $20 billion dollars and what explanations had been given.”

Sanusi further added that “all we have said as CBN, to which there is no disagreement, is that NNPC shipped $67 billion worth of crude and they have repatriated or we have established that $47 billion has come back to the federation. There is a $20 billon that has not come back to us. The burden of proof is on NNPC.”

Senate committee chairman, Senator Makarfi, however, cautioned against sensationalism, adding that there was nothing new in the submissions made by Sanusi.

According to him, all parties should make the issue a national one rather than a sensational issue.

He stated that the issues of unremitted funds had always cropped up at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meetings, adding that all the parties involved must come up with facts and not “to constitute ourselves to judge and jury.”

The NNPC GMD, however, stated that the CBN had erroneously calculated funds meant for private firms operating in the oil sector as part of proceeds of the Federation Account.

According to him, the NNPC had accounted for 80 per cent of the proceeds talked about by the CBN, but added that the remaining 20 per cent went into subsidies and such issues.

“If we had anything to hide, we would not have made it clear that NPDC was part of the stream, because NPDC which is NNPC’s upstream operation, is a limited liability company registered by the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) to do upstream business, just like any other independent company.

“Now, if you are in your business, will you take your gross revenue and pass it on? What we simply said was to account for the streams that the CBN governor erroneously captured.

“So what he said was not really new. We said clearly that we stated an amount that went to NPDC and that amount was the gross lifting.

“But there are other streams that go back to government in terms of taxes just like any other business player. So we have royalties, petroleum profit tax, among others. Now these are subject of other detailed discussions and investigations and they are open.

“We give access to the Auditor General of the Federation, we give access to Accountant-General, we give access to agencies that have business to do with  auditing our own business.

“And at the Federation Account too, we render this report as you are told on monthly basis and these are issues that are subject of reconciliation on monthly basis. So, for issues like this to come to the public glare again becomes worrisome that we throw away numbers, we throw away allegations that at the end of the day we clarify but then the damage would have been done.”