NNPC didn't remit N3.2tr in 2014 - Auditor General

The Auditor-General's latest annual report has revealed a string of irregular or fraudulent expenditures running into trillions of naira.

Mr. Samuel Ukura's 2014 annual audit report, coming about six months late, named the NNPC, office of the former National Security Adviser, the National Assembly and the Force Headquarters as some of the major culprits.

Submitting the report to the Clerk to National Assembly, Alhaji Salisu Maikasua, Mr Ukura revealed that the NNPC, for example, did not remit the sum of N3.2 trillion into the Federation Account in 2014.

He said: "The examination of NNPC mandates to CBN on domestic crude oil sales and reconciliation statement of technical sub-committee showed that N3, 234,577,666,791.35 was not remitted to the Federation Account."

He added: "The review of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) limited sales profile on Gas has shown that $235million was not paid to the Federation Account but transferred to some undisclosed Escrow accounts". He said the relevant documents were not made available for the verification of the said $235million.

Ukura said sales profile in respect of gas export due to the federation was stated to have been paid and received through the NLNG account.

However, he said: "No statements or documents were made available to confirm the receipts as well as the utilisation of these payments made through the named account." The Auditor General also said N36.4bn was released to the office of the former National Security Adviser, retired Colonel Sambo Dasuki, for the rehabilitation and construction of dams instead of to the Federal Ministry of Water Resources.

FG owes us N1.3tr - NNPC

Meanwhile, the NNPC has dismissed the Auditor General's report saying instead that it is the federal government that owes the Corporation N1.3 trillion.

The Group General Manager in charge of FAAC, Mr. Godwin Okonkwo, told reporters on the phone last night that subsidy and other activities that the NNPC had undertaken on the orders of the federal government ran into trillions of naira and had not been repaid.

"The federation has a claim on NNPC and NNPC has a claim on the federation. The federal government hired forensic examiners (KPMG) to come and check the NNPC claims whether it is true or not.

"They concluded the report and submitted to the federal government but the report is yet to be implemented. We claimed that they (federal government) owe us N1.3trillion."

"When this regime came we wrote to the president to direct the government to look at the report so that we can know who owes who. The minister of finance has recalled the auditors to brief her on the report and the issue comes up in FAAC," he said.

Okonkwo said it was impossible for NNPC to withhold such amount of money because NNPC did not own all the oil produced in the country. "That amount is wrong. Even the oil that is produced, we have only 60 percent of it, Shell and others have 40 percent.

They (auditors) just calculated the total volumes produced in Nigeria and multiplied," he said.