Oscarline Onwuemenyi
20 February 2015, Sweeetcrude, Abuja – The House of Representatives yesterday urged the Presidency to immediately release to it, the recent report of forensic audit of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
The chamber said the demand for the audited report which was recently presented to President Goodluck Jonathan by PriceWaterHouseCooper was for “purpose of accountability,” explaining that it was acting in compliance with the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.
PriceWaterHouseCoopers, had in the report, indicted NNPC for not remitting $1.48 billion and recommended that the sum be refunded.
The report is to be forwarded to the Solomon Olamilekan-led Committee on Public Accounts.
The House resolution yesterday, followed a motion moved, under matters of urgent public importance, by the Minority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila, who regretted that neither the government nor the National Assembly has briefed the public on the details of the report since February 2 that it was presented.
Gbajabiamila stressed that following the allegation by former Governor of the Central Bank Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, that the sum of about $20 billion was unremitted to the Federation Account by the NNPC, the Federal Government set up an audit into the account of the cooperation.
Specifically, he said up till now nobody has been briefed about the outcome of the report and that in view of the Freedom of Information Act, the House should call on the Federal Government to make available the report of the audit firm to the House.
The Speaker of the House, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, after the motion was passed by majority urged the Federal Government to make public the audit report and make it available to the House.
Recall that NNPC and the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company were indicted by the investigative forensic audit done by PriceWaterhouseCoopers into the allegations of unremitted funds to the Federation Accounts.
The highlight of the report was released a few weeks ago by the Auditor General for the Federation, Mr. Samuel Ukura, on the orders of President Goodluck Jonathan.
In the report, the accounting firm asked both organisations to refund to the Federation Account “a minimum of $1.48bn.”
The international auditing firm, PriceWaterHouseCoopers, was last year hired to carry out the exercise following an allegation by the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, that $20 billion was not remitted to the Federation Account by the NNPC.
Sanusi, who is now the Emir of Kano had written a letter to President Goodluck Jonathan that $49 billion was not remitted to the Federation Account by the NNPC.
