Ike Amos
14 December 2018, Sweetcrude, Abuja — The Senate Committee on Gas, Thursday, clarified that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, was not guilty of financial misappropriation as regards the $1.05 billion dividend payment from the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas, NLNG, stating that no such fund was missing.
According to a statement by the NNPC in Abuja, Chairman of the committee, Senator Bassey Albert, clarified that the ongoing investigation of the application of the dividend to support the importation of petroleum products into the country had nothing to do with any missing funds since no such money was missing in the first place.
Albert, who doubles as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Application of the NLNG Dividend, explained that the clarification became necessary due to sensational and misleading reports.
He said the mandate of the Committee was to determine the instrument under which NNPC relied upon to affect the said withdrawal and subsequent application of the NLNG dividend to meet pressing national demand for fuel supply, noting that the Committee relies on NNPC to provide an informed perspective on the issues.
The Senate Committee Chairman emphasized that the engagement with NNPC was to understand the rudiments of the accounting flow and also to discover how the Committee, working in harmony with NNPC, could make the NLNG dividend more effective and beneficial to the nation.
Responding, Mr. Isiaka Abdulrazaq, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of NNPC, who represented the corporation’s Group Managing Director, Mr. Maikanti Baru, pledged the willingness of the corporation to support the Committee in its assignment, saying that relevant documents have been supplied to the panel to enable it to determine the veracity or otherwise of NNPC’s perspective.
