NNPC yet to remit N4.07 trillion from 2015/2016 crude sales

A review of the 2015/2016 audited report of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has revealed that the organisation may have failed to remit N4.07trillion revenue from domestic crude oil sales for the period. 
    
For 2015, the organisation has an under remittance of N3.9 trillion, while it did not remit N197.6 billion in 2016. The review of the audit report carried out by the Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative (PLSI) stressed the need for the Public Account Committee of the National Assembly to see if the corporation has remitted the amount due since 2016.
 
A breakdown of the outstanding revenue revealed that the NNPC did not collect gas and other miscellaneous receipts for several months and of the N450 billion that was to be paid into the Federation Account, it only paid N356billion.
 
It added that there was also an under-remittance from domestic crude oil sales of N3.9 trillion and another $30 million that should have been paid into the Federation Account but went into Nigeria Gas Limited.
  
The Executive Director of PlLSI, Segun Elemo, during a policy dialogue on improving corporate governance, operational efficiency and revenue management practices at the NNPC and its subsidiaries highlighted some of the outstanding accountability issues in the 2015 audited report, suggesting that the NNPC generated N1.7 trillion and deducted JVC of N927 billion from the source, while paying only N797.7billion into the Federal Account.
  
Elemo noted that Section 162(1) of the 1999 construction stipulates that all revenue proceeds should be paid into the Federation Account and that the NNPC does not have any basis to deduct their operational cost from sources. He said its operational costs should be budgeted to curb corruption in the oil and gas sector.
 
He further lamented that the audit analysis carried out on the NNPC showed that the cooperation operational cost was more than the revenue contributed to the group, pointing out that the percentage of NNPC retail share of 4.06 per cent cost is more than the 3.99 percent revenue contribution to the group.
   
Elemo further disclosed that despite contributing 0.02 per cent to the group, Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries have incurred about N1.2 trillion that the group is claiming to have been owed, defeating the government’s decision to pump money into the refineries.
  
He decried the approval of $1.5billion for the Port Harcourt refinery that had an operating cost of N25.2 billion in 2019 without generating anything, saying it is clear that the investment is not profitable.