The NNPC audit

The revelation, which eventually led to Sanusi’s suspension from office, caused consternation in government circles and was stoutly denied by the government, although sustained and persistent public scepticism of its position led to the engagement of PWC. There were allegations of attempts at cover-up directed principally at the Minister of Finance, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.  The […]

The revelation, which eventually led to Sanusi’s suspension from office, caused consternation in government circles and was stoutly denied by the government, although sustained and persistent public scepticism of its position led to the engagement of PWC. There were allegations of attempts at cover-up directed principally at the Minister of Finance, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.  The report’s executive summary, which the government made public, suggested that only $1.48 billion was yet to be remitted to the Federation Account by the NNPC and one of its subsidiaries, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC). The report noted that the NPDC was yet to remit another $2.22 billion in signature bonus, petroleum profit tax and royalties to the Federation Account. The government, which is yet to release the full report submitted to it, has seized on the summary to assert that it was false to claim that 20 billion dollars was missing or unaccounted for. Indeed, the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) issued a statement warning the public that it would no longer tolerate calls for the resignation of Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, whose tenure is perceived to have provided the environment for the massive corruption and theft of assets to run rampant in the petroleum industry in recent years.
The report established that total revenue generated from crude oil lifting was valued at $69.34 billion, which incidentally is higher than the $67 billion arrived at by the Senate Reconciliation Committee, which also looked into the NNPC books. It stated that of the $69.34 billion, $28.22 billion represented the value of domestic crude oil allocated to NNPC, while the total amount spent on petrol and kerosene subsidy stood at $5.32 billion and $3.38 billion respectively. It found that a total of $50.81 billion in crude oil lifting was remitted into the federation account within the period.
 Until the entire report is made public, it would be premature to make a definitive conclusion of the culpability or otherwise of public officers and agencies involved. But it speaks to a strange sense of righteousness to suggest that 1.48 billion dollars presumably missing from the Federation Account is not sufficient enough to question the role of public office holders.   President Jonathan’s pledge to launch a comprehensive reform of the oil sector would be meaningless if, as in previous cases involving some of his aides, this ends up providing soft-landing for the perpetrators. The president is at liberty to describe, as he did, media reports on the activities of NNPC as ‘ridiculous’, noting that figures he could not believe possible were being tagged as missing.  As long as the opacity of the accounting processes in the NNPC and in the entire petroleum industry is not cleared and rendered transparent, his words will ring hollow.       If another former Governor of the CBN Chukwuma Soludo had not written a damning critique of the administration’s economic policies, mentioning the hibernating PWC report in the process, it is plausible that it would still be on the shelf.  
The president should forward the report to the appropriate quarters, which is the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly not, as he proposed, to the Auditor-General of the Federation, who should have been the right officer to raise a forensic audit panel in the first place.