Sanusi:Senate committee says $49.8bn oil funds not missing
(Nigeria) The Senate Joint Committee on Finance has said
that contrary to claims by suspended Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN governor,
Mallam Lamido Sanusi, there is never any
unremitted $49.8 billion.
This formed part of the report of the Senate Committee on
Finance which investigated the allegations by Sanusi that $49.8 billion was not
remitted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC into the
Federation Account.
The report was signed by the committee's Chairman, Sen.
Ahmed Makarfi, and nine other members.
According to the report, the total crude oil lifting between
January 2012 and July 2013 was 67 billion dollars and not 65 billion dollars as
the CBN governor had presented.
The committee stated that the CBN, NNPC, Ministry of Finance
and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources had agreed after reconciliation that
the sum of 47 billion dollars out of the $67 billion had been credited to the
Federation Account.
``The problem of non-remittance of revenues by the NNPC was
not new and it was not the CBN that first disclosed it. The committee could not
see how the figure of 49.8 billion dollars was arrived at by the CBN governor
in the first instance," it said.
The committee
recommended for the complete discontinuation of the fuel subsidy regime
in the country.
It, however, recommended that NNPC should refund to the
Federation Account, the total sum of $218,069,354.32 being the balance of the
gross lifting under the third party financing.
The committee also recommended that inter-agencies
reconciliation meetings between institutions such as the Ministry of Finance,
NNPC, CBN and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) should be done on
regular basis.
It said such regular meetings among those sensitive economic
institutions would prevent a recurrence of this situation and ensure that all
revenues were properly and legally accounted for.
It urged the Senate
to accept the N813.8 billion
subsidy deductions by the NNPC from January 2012 to July 2013, since it was
certified by the PPPRA and appropriated for by the National Assembly.
The committee, in addition, asked the Senate to accept the
subsidy deducted by NNPC in the sum of N180 billion for the fourth quarter of
2011 which was also certified by the PPPRA and appropriated by the National
Assembly.
The committee noted that no proposal was made in the 2014
appropriation bill for subsidy on kerosene, adding that the subsidy on PMS is
inadequate.
Also, the committee advised that NNPC should henceforth not
pay their operational expenditures direct from the Federation Fund without
appropriation by the National Assembly.
It stressed that the oil corporation should strictly adhere
to international best practises in keeping records.
It cautioned that
NNPC should not control the revenue account of Nigerian Petroleum
Development Company, NPDC, so as not to undermine its separate legal status and
make accountability more difficult.
The committee further advised the NNPC to ensure due process
and diligence in its operations, and urged the Senate to urgently pass the
Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) into law so as avoid the mistakes of the past .
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