The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, on Thursday, strongly criticised the failure by the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari, and heads of the corporation’s subsidiaries to appear before it.
The committee decried that it was the tenth time the officials would write to defer their appearance at its investigative hearing on the audit queries issued against them by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation, including unaccounted proceed of oil sales amounting to about N3.9tn.
Those with queries against them are the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited, Petroleum Products Marketing Company Limited, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, NNPC Retail Limited, National Petroleum Investment & Management Services, National Petroleum Exchange, Nigerian Gas Company, NNPC Pension Limited, Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company, Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company, and the Port Harcourt Refining Company.
Others are Duke Oil Company Inc., West Africa Gas Limited, Nidas Marine Limited, Hyson (Nigeria) Limited, National Engineering and Technical Company, and Integrated Data Service Limited.
One of the queries by the OAUGF is alleging under remittance of revenue from domestic crude oil sales totalling N3.878tn.
The OAUGF had issued another query against the NNPC bothering on the non-collection of miscellaneous gas receipts for some months in 2015, asking the corporation to refund N450bn to the Federation Account; another refund of N1.8tn as well as unpaid gas revenue without details worth $198,919,212.27 (N37,189,084,819.19).
Kyari is particularly expected to respond to the audit query on “payment through Nigeria Gas Limited Funding Account $30,963,894.01 (N16,099,887,119.77) as well as misapplication of Joint Venture Cash Calls for other purpose, $292,094,405.82 and N2,474,295,000.
Beneficiaries from the Nigeria Gas Limited Funding Account, namely Century Energy Service Ltd, United Refining Rachmann, Union Petroleum Service, Ocean Bed Trading Ltd, Ice Energy & Petroleum, Mangrove Pet. Supplies & Logistic, and Unicorp Trading Ltd are expected to also appear before the committee.
The committee is also probing into the alleged illegal withdrawals from the account of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited totalling $20.3bn and the utilisation of the funds from inception to date.
However, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Dr K. A Obateru, in a letter to Chairman of the committee, Wole Oke, with Reference Number GGM/GPAD/08 and February 10, 2020 (sic), said the GMD of NNPC would not appear before the lawmakers on Thursday.
Oke said, “NNPC has written us again for the tenth time to seek deferment and ask for another date.”
The letter, a copy of which our correspondent obtained on Thursday, partly read, “We wish to reassure the leadership of the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that the NNPC holds it in very high regard and esteem. However, we regret the inability of the GMD to attend the meeting scheduled for February 11, 2021, due to a prescheduled critical and time bound operational matter. In view of the current circumstance as stated above, we kindly request that the meeting be rescheduled. Please accept the assurances of the GMD’s best consideration at all times.”
Several members of the committee, who were miffed by the development, condemned the NNPC and called for drastic action against the corporation.
In his ruling, Oke urged members of the committee to give the NNPC GMD and other invitees one more grace.
He said, “I want to plead with us that we should give them the last opportunity and that the clerk should write a very strongly worded letter to the GMD of NNPC and its subsidiaries. The worst story is that there are 18 subsidiaries under NNPC who also have queries to answer and the GMD ordered them not to appear because they are subsidiaries.
“I want to state that the GMD is not in a position to dictate to the parliament on how the parliament should conduct its business. If we wait and don’t see the GMD appearing here, we will resolve all matters raised by the Auditor-General in favour of the Auditor-General. All the allegations of misappropriation raised by the Auditor-General will be raised in their favour if the GMD and the subsidiaries refuse to cause appearance.
“NNPC is not bigger than this institution. But I want to plead with us to give them the last chance. If they failed to appear at the next adjourned date, we will not summon them again but simply resolve all the issues in favour of the Auditor-General and then tender it on the floor of the House for adoption.”