20 March 2013, Sweetcrude, ABUJA – The House of Representatives Committee on Finance has directed the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Andrew Yakubu, and management team of all its subsidiaries to submit their financial reports for scrutiny.
Chairman of the Committee, Abdmumin jibrin, who expressed concern over the non-appearance of the top management team of NNPC and its subsidiaries at the ongoing investigative hearing on non-remittance of internally generated revenue to the Consolidated Fund, warned that any defaulter will face the wrath of the law.
Representatives of some of the subsidiaries who appeared before
the committee, however, failed to provide details of their financial
records, arguing that the invitation letters got to them late.
The Chairman explained that investigations conducted by the Committee revealed that the NNPC and its subsidiaries failed to comply with the provisions of the Constitution and relevant financial regulations including Fiscal
Responsibility Act 2007.
Jubrin noted, “As a result, the Committee wants to know how the
accounts of the subsidiaries and their remittances to the main
accounts are properly managed. We need to know if remittance
figures reflected for each subsidiary are correct or not.
“While we were made to believe that the NNPC has not benefited
from the Petroleum Support Fund (PSF), we are inviting the Petroleum Product Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) to come and substantiate that claim.”
Acccording to him, “Accounts of the subsidiaries are consolidated with that of the NNPC. There is only one account, there is no different account for the subsidiaries.”
On his part, NNPC Legal Adviser, Bernard Otti, argued that the
subsidiaries were set up by the NNPC and that the laws setting it up only recognised NNPC account and not the subsidiaries’ account.
Similarly, members of the Committee queried Federal Airport
Authority of Nigeria’s(FAAN) for spending all the internally generated revenues (IGR) without recourse to the Fiscal Responsibility Act, (FRA) 2007.
FAAN generated N112.3 billion between 2009 and 2011 and N27.8
billion in 2012.
While the agency was requested to pay N6.9 billion to the government from what it generated in 2012, the organization said it is impossible because the agency cannot afford to.