*Subsidy, others gulps N666bn
Ike Amos
Abuja — National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), the investment arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), spent N62.87 billion on public relations in 2019.
According to its audited 2019 Annual Report and Financial Statements released in the last quarter of 2020, the amount spent on public relations in 2019, which was an election year in Nigeria, represented an increase of 834 per cent when compared to the N6.73 billion spent on the same activity in 2018.
NAPIMS, the report noted, further spent N49.74 billion on consultancy; N4.03 billion on transportation and travelling cost; N80.79 million and N387.4 million on advertisements and entertainment, respectively in the year under review.
Major big money guzzlers in NAPIMS in 2019, included joint venture insurance and travelling expenses, which gulped N209.82 billion and N13.53 billion; while the NNPC subsidiary spent N134.28 billion on pre-shipment inspection, motor vehicle license, staff union expenses and local community development and corporate overhead expenses.
The report also disclosed that NAPIMS spent N666.47 billion on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) under recovery, also known as fuel subsidy, and other reimbursable claims, a decline of 25.17 per cent compared to N890.63 billion spent on the same items in 2018.
Providing explanation for the amount spent on subsidy, termed ‘cost under recovery on domestic petroleum sales and reimbursable claims’ in the financial statement, NAPIMS said: “NNPC is allocated 445,000 barrels per day of crude oil at international market prices for providing wholesale petroleum products for domestic use. Some of these products are sold at government regulated prices that are below pump price, resulting in cost under recoveries.
“Also reimbursable are other costs including crude oil/petroleum products losses due to pipeline vandalism, cost of maintaining strategic reserves of petroleum products, cost of pipeline management and extraordinary repairs incurred in the supply of domestic petroleum products to the market.
“This cost under recovery and reimbursable claims are periodically presented and adopted by the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) and subsequently recognized by NAPIMS.”
Furthermore, the report revealed that NAPIMS’ staff earned N18.98 billion as salaries, wages, allowances, bonus and other benefits in 2019, dropping, however, by 42.42 per cent from N32.96 billion recorded in 2018.
Giving a breakdown of the staff emoluments, the report noted that N6.19 billion was spent on salaries and wages in 2019, compared to N8.89 billion in 2018; staff allowances and bonus stood at N2.13 billion and N560.77 million, respectively; while other staff expenses and other staff benefit stood at N9.43 billion and N669.22 million respectively.
The report explained that other staff expenses included welfare expenses, sports expenses, canteen services, Industrial Trust Fund (ITF) contribution, protective clothing and telephone expenses.
