Senate Queries PEF’s N100m Interest On 2015 N34bn Fixed Deposit

The Senate has condemned the management of the scrapped Petroleum Equalization Fund for not remitting all the N182m interest that accrued from the N34bn in fixed deposit of some banks.

The agency only remitted N82m without giving information about the remaining N100m.

The Senate Public Accounts Committee made the condemnation while considering the 2016 report of the Auditor General for the Federation at its last sitting on Friday.

The management of PEF did not appear before the committee which was earlier scheduled for Wednesday last week.

The PEF management did not also forward any formal communication to the panel headed by Senator Matthew Urhoghide to explain reasons for its absence.

Our correspondent learnt that the new management of the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission would be contacted by the Senate panel to respond to the audit query against PEF since the Federal Government had scrapped the agency following the signing of the Petroleum Industry Act.

Part of the AuGF query read, “At the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (Management) Board, it was revealed that in 2015, the Board placed the sum of N34,003,057,534.22 in fixed deposit accounts in various banks.

“The money yielded an interest in the sum of N182,400,810.74.

“However, the Board remitted only the sum of N82,263,824.31 to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, leaving a balance of N100,136,986.43 unaccounted for.

“This act is a contravention of the provision of Financial Regulation 222 which stipulates that, interest earned on bank accounts must be properly classified to the appropriate revenue head of accounts and paid to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

“The Executive Secretary should remit the outstanding interest yield of N100,136,986.43 immediately to the Consolidated Revenue Fund and furnish evidence of remittance for my verification.

“ Failure to comply should attract appropriate sanctions in line with Financial Regulation 3112 which stipulates that where an officer fails to give satisfactory reply to an audit query within seven days for his failure to account for government revenue.

“Such officer shall be surcharged for the full amount involved and such officer handed over to either the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission or the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission.”