NASS issues bench warrant on seven oil companies

• Senate to debate NEITI report, says Saraki

The Senate and House of Representatives joint committees on Niger Delta Development Commission, (NDDC), yesterday issued bench warrants on seven oil companies operating in the Niger Delta region for failure to appear before a public hearing to defend themselves over alleged non- remittance of statutory funds to the commission for the development of the region.

This is as the lawmakers have accused the management of NDDC of not keeping accurate financial records .

In another development, President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, on Tuesday said that the Senate would debate the 2013 Audit Report of the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in view of the mind-boggling revelations of mismanagement contained therein.

Saraki, disclosed this when the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Waziri Adio led the management of the body to present a copy of its 2013 Audit report to the Senate President.

The position of the joint committee was as a result of revelations from some oil companies that had made frantic efforts to meet with he management of the NDDC to reconcile their accounts with the commission and settle the necessary outstanding.

Oriental Energy Resources Chief Technical Adviser, Goni Sheikh specifically told the committee that they had made several efforts to meet with the NDDC since December, 2015, and had written about three letters to the commission to have a meeting to reconcile accounts, adding that they had $1 million to pay to the commission for the past six months but NDDC has not given the company audience.

The seven companies to be placed on bench warrant are, Continental Oil and Gas Ltd, Conoil Oil Producing Limited, Niger Delta Petroleum Resources, Allied Energy Plc, Sheba Petroleum Exploration and Production/Express Petroleum, Newcross E& P, Panocean Oil Corporation and Atlas Petroleum Development Coy.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on NDDC, Peter Nwaoboshi lamented that while those who had represented the NDDC had created the impression that it was the oil companies that were not remitting
testimonies from some of the companies showed “it appeared the NDDC was satisfied with what it had, adding, “there is a procedural lapses in NDDC. The regulations, the procedure they are adopting in that office will be a matter between us and them.”

Receiving Adio , Saraki commended him for the approach to formally present the report to the Senate apart from sending the report to the relevant committees.

“In preparation for this courtesy call, I studied the report in the early hours of this morning, and honestly I was just dumbfounded about the figures that we are talking about.

“ In one year’s audit report you are talking about figures of about N650billion. Then you are talking about another N358 billion which brings it close to about N1trillion.

“These are just astronomical figures and nobody is being asked where the authority came from. Even if you say it was a minister, do we have where managements of those organizations have been able to say this is not what should be done?

“So to me and on our own part in this Senate, what I am going to assure you is that apart from getting the report, I promise you we are going to have a plenary session on it.. Let us discuss it. It is serious!”

Earlier, Adio, had lamented the level of mismanagement of resources in the oil and gas industry over the years and said that the country has no definite account of the oil produced over the period.