Fresh troubles appear to be
unfolding for the embattled Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC) and other government agencies in the petroleum sector, as the
Auditor General of the Federation has queried the diversion of N2.30
trillion from the Federal Government’s (FG) purse.
The amount, classified as Excess Crude Oil/PPT/Royalty, is part of the nation’s total oil and gas revenue for 2012.
The Auditor-General raised the query in
the just-concluded 2012 audit report submitted to the House Committee on
Public Accounts.
A breakdown
of the illegal deduction showed that the sum of N477.44 billion was in
favour of NNPC; N377.26 billion in favour of Department of Petroleum
Resources (DPR) while the sum of N1.45 trillion was in favour of the
Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
The deduction, the Audit report argued,
was in contravention of section 162(1) of the 1999 Constitution, which
provides that “the federation shall maintain a special account to be
called ‘The Federation Account’ into which shall be paid, all revenues
collected by the government of the federation, except the proceeds from
the personal income tax of the personnel of the Armed Forces of the
federation, the Nigeria Police Force, the Ministry or Department of
government charged with responsibility for Foreign Affairs and the
residents of the FCT.”
This coming just weeks after the
PriceWaterHouse forensic audit report recommended that the NNPC should
refund at least N1.48 billion to the federation account.
In this latest report, the
Auditor-General lamented that, “efforts by the audit team to obtain
legal authority for the creation of the Excess Crude Oil/PPT/Royalty
Account, proved abortive.
“The total sum of $219.24 million and
$443.84 million were credited to the FGN Excess Proceeds Crude oil sales
account and PPT/Royalty Account respectively, as interest on fixed term
deposits.
“Also, the sums totalling $0.221 million
and $0.453 million were credited to the FGN Excess Proceeds of crude oil
sales account and PPT/Royalty Account respectively, as interest on
ordinary deposits.”
The Accountant-General queried the
legality of the deductions and noted that “the authority for placing the
funds which yielded the above interests in deposit account was not made
available as requested.
He further observed that: “The banks
where the deposits were made, principal sums deposited, tenor and rate,
were also not made available for audit verification as requested.”
During the examination of the statements
of the Bank for International Settlement Account of FGN Excess Proceeds
of PPT/Royalty Account, the Auditor-General also observed that “an
amount of $500 million was debited into the account on August 29, 2012
and described as interest on fixed term deposit.
“The nature and type of transactions that resulted to the debit interest of the above amount was not known”, the report stated.
Equally, page 74 of the report also
indicted the NNPC over unremitted revenue from domestic crude oil sales
worth N936.02 billion, for which the NNPC Group Managing Director has
been queried by the Accountant General of the Federation.
The AGF had sought the explanation for
the flagrant attitude of withholding domestic crude sale revenue and
asked for its refund and the details forwarded to the Auditor General of
the Federation.
The NNPC GMD was also queried over the $0.998 million interest
earned on the Joint Venture Cash Calls in 2012; failure to reconcile
all arrears of JVCs since inception to the tune of $1.66 million and N171.30 million being arrears for year 2012.
Queries were also issued on the $75.055
million outstanding crude oil trade debtors; unauthorised movement of
$50 million from NNPC joint venture cash call account with JP Morgan
Chase to another foreign bank account on February 28, 2011 without any
mandate or authority for the movement, as well as, accrued interest of
$1.25 million
The corporation is also to explain N30.25
billion over-deducted subsidy, as well as N260 billion deducted at
source by the NNPC for petroleum subsidy fund, as well as N229.74
billion subsidy, as reflected in the account of the Petroleum Products
Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) approved for NNPC.
These monies were deducted outside
budgetary provision, resulting in extra-budgetary spending on subsidy by
NNPC during the year.
The Department of Petroleum Resources
(DPR) is to explain why 21 oil companies have defaulted on the payment
of over $706.88 million oil royalties. The Accountant General of the
Federation has been informed to recover the outstanding royalties.
The Accountant General of the Federation
is also involved as the government auditor has asked him to explain the
difference of N41.85 billion, as well as, pay back a total sum of N1.90
trillion into the Federation Account.
Of this sum, N1.13 trillion is for joint
venture cash calls (JVCs); N260 billion is for petroleum subsidy;
N477.44 billion is for excess crude sale and N31.14 billion under
remittance of revenue deducted at source by NNPC from the revenue
proceeds, in accordance with Section 162(1) of the 1999 Constitution.
The Auditor General on page 66 of the
report also asked the Accountant-General of the Federation to explain
why the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) failed to share
the sum of N385.90 billion to the three tiers of governments, out of the
total net receipts of N5.68 trillion after deducting cost of collection
for the year 2012.
Similarly, the Auditor General also
raised a query on the transfer of the sum of N319. 94 billion to SURE-P
from the Federation Account, out of the total sum of N426.59 billion
approved for the programme.
It was also observed that the Federal
Government’s share of N146.63 billion was paid directly to a separate
SURE-P account in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in violation of the
Constitutional provision that stipulates that the Federal Government’s
share from the Federation Account be paid directly to the Consolidated
Revenue Fund.
KEHINDE AKINTOLA
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