… NNPC deducts N8.33 billion monthly for the rehabilitation of the refineries
… NNPC deducted N788.78 billion between 2018 and 2021 without recourse to the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee
By Abdallah el-Kurebe
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governors forum has alleged that Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari is responsible for the revenue leakages in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC, Limited.
The governors also asked the president to resign as Minister of Petroleum and concentrate on his constitutional responsibility of leading the country.
A communique read by the Forum’s chairman and governor of Sokoto state, Aminu Tambuwal at the end of their meeting which held in Aba, Abia state on Wednesday, also blamed NNPC’s revenue leakages on Buhari’s continued oversight of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources as its minister.
“We believe that all these leakages in NNPC have been made possible because the President is also the Minister of Petroleum. The urgent separation of these two portfolios has become necessary,” the communique reads.
According to the governors, while the NNPC makes monthly deduction of N8.33 billion for the rehabilitation of the refineries in Nigeria with no refinery working to date, N788.78 billion deducted between 2018-2021 for various priority projects in the oil and gas sector, were without recourse to the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC.
They also rejected claims by the NNPC that it paid about N1 trillion in petroleum subsidy in one year.
“The NNPC in 2021 alone claimed to have paid over N1 trillion as petroleum subsidy. Indeed, in March 2022, N220 billion was deducted as oil subsidy with a promise that N328 billion will be deducted in April 2022. This is unacceptable.
“The NNPC and the FIRS, as well as other remitting agencies, continue to apply an exchange rate of N389/$1 as against the Import and Export window of N416/$1. The extent of this leakage can be better felt if this rate is compared to the current N570/$1.
“From available records about N7.6 trillion is withheld between 2012 and 2021, by the NNPC from the Federation Account. All these are said to be payments for oil subsidies. We believe that all these leakages in the NNPC have been made possible because the President is also the Minister of Petroleum. The urgent separation of these two portfolios has become necessary,” the communique further reads.
The governors slammed the NNPC for failing to meet up with its statutory contributions to the Federation Account despite selling crude oil for $110.
“It is patently unconstitutional for NNPC to determine at its whim and discretion when and what to pay to the Federation Account, as it is a mere trustee of the funds for the three tiers of Government: Federal, States and Local Governments.
“We once again call for investigations and audits of the quantity of consumption of fuel ascribed to Nigerians and for the deployment of technology at the filling stations to determine transparently the volume of consumption. The governors would resist any further attempt by the NNPC to ascribe unsubstantiated subsidy claims to other tiers of government.”
The forum also decried various reports of crude oil theft ranging from 80 per cent to 95 per cent of the output industry stakeholders, and called on the federal government to set up robust mechanisms to stop this occurrence and punish those found guilty.
