The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) has confirmed that N4.9 trillion was yet to be remitted into the Federation Account by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

A statement signed by the its Spokesperson, Mr. Ibrahim Mohammed, said: “The figure of N3.2 trillion was from the 2014 Annual Audit Report obtained from the records of the FAAC Technical sub-Committee on Domestic Crude Oil Sales and reconciliation statement as contained in the NNPC’s mandate to Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) but available records at the Commission’s disposal indicate that between January 2011 and December, 2015, the total indebtedness of NNPC to the Federation Account was N4.9 trillion.”

Mohammed added that a figure that included NNPC’s claims for subsidy on petroleum products, crude and product losses, strategic reserves and the pipeline maintenance cost contributed to bring the NNPC’s indebtedness to the Federation Account to N4.9 trillion.

The statement noted that while the said report claimed that NNPC owed N3.2 trillion to the Federation Account in 2014 from domestic crude sale, the Commission’s records “revealed that the Corporation owed the Federation Account N1.99 trillion only in 2014 from domestic crude sales. “Therefore, the figure quoted by the Auditor-General of the Federation must have included revenues from other sources.”

With regard to the alleged payment of $235 million realised from the sale of Natural gas into an undisclosed Escrow Account by the NNPC, the Commission explained that the NNPC on behalf of the NLNG had entered into agreements with three International Oil Companies (IOCs)–Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC), Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), Total E&P Nigeria Limited (TEPNG) under a Modified Carry Agreement (MCA) proceeds from which are deposited in Escrow Accounts for funding the various gas projects under the Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG).

“The total amount transferred to the various accounts from 2012 to November 2015 was $1.615 billion. The Commission, through the FAAC post-mortem, has consistently requested the NNPC to provide it with updated financial statements on the projects but NNPC was yet to respond,” Mohammed said.

It would be recalled that the Commission had been working with NNPC to reconcile the figures following a tripartite meeting held with the NNPC, Federal Ministry of Finance (FMF) and RMAFC in December last year where it was agreed that in view of the subsidy and other claims by NNPC, the forensic audit of NNPC was very critical in establishing which party was actually indebted to the other. The forensic audit is expected to be concluded by the end of this month.

Source: The Nation