Audit Query: NNPC, Subsidiaries Must Appear Before Us – Reps

The House of Representatives’ Committee on Public Accounts has insisted that the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari, and heads of 17 subsidiaries of the corporation must appear before it on Monday (today) to account for alleged mismanaged funds.

The committee on Friday threatened to invoke relevant sections of the 1999 Constitution to compel the NNPC and the 17 others to respond to the various audit queries issued by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation, in which they were accused of deliberate and reckless refusal to render accounts from 2014 to 2018 in breach of extant financial regulations.

The committee accused the NNPC of directing all the heads of the 17 subsidiaries invited to its investigative hearing not to honour its invitation.

Those with queries against them are the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited, Petroleum Products Marketing Company Limited, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, NNPC Retail Limited, National Petroleum Investment & Management Services, National Petroleum Exchange and the Nigerian Gas Company.

Members of the committee at the investigative hearing on Friday decried how those invited had failed to appear before them.

The lawmakers unanimously resolved to invoke relevant sections of the Constitution and Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act, 2018, on the NNPC and the 17 others to force them to appear unfailingly.

The resolution was in response to a letter from the NNPC signed by the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Dr K. A. Obateru, with Reference Number NNPC/GPAD/008.5, dated January 5, 2021.

Obateru in the letter advised the House to direct all enquiries on PHRC to the corporate headquarters which handles the budgeting matters for its subsidiary.