TheCable

The house of representatives ad hoc committee probing the “missing” $17 billion crude oil and liquefied natural gas revenue says it has discovered that $15 billion was unremitted to the federation account.

The sum said to be diverted was contained in two reports submitted to the committee by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

At the committee’s hearing on Monday, Rabiu Bello, NNPC’s chief operating officer (COO), admitted that there were discrepancies in the documents.

Also speaking at the hearing, Jack Ukitetu, a director in Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), who represented Godwin Emeifele, governor of the bank, explained that after 2006, oil companies paid directly what was due to the government, not the CBN.

He told the committee that the CBN charged 0.25 percent while it paid monies on behalf of government’s agencies and remitted same into the federal reserve account in New York.

Ukitetu said apart from 0.25 percent they collected via foreign exchange allocation they did not charge the federal government as deduction were made from central sales.

On his part, Waziri Adio, executive secretary of Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI), who had accused NNPC and CBN of misleading the committee, pledged to submit more damaging documents on the alleged crude oil theft to the committee on Wednesday.

He said this would guide the lawmakers in unearthing the unremitted revenue accrued from oil and gas.

Abdulrazak Namdas, chairman of the committee, said its report would be submitted to the house without the inputs of the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) that have failed to honour its invitation.

The committee further asked the CBN and NNPC to submit the audited report of the oil and gas account showing the remitted funds into the federation account between 2011 and 2014.

The lawmakers further directed the NNPC to produce the bill of laden relating to the 974,721 barrels of crude oil lifted on October 20, 2011, and 961,963 barrels lifted on October 10, 2011.