The Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation, (AuGF), has said that the defunct Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) now NNPC Limited, failed to account for over 107 million barrels of crude oil lifted for domestic consumption in 2019.
The AuGF, in a report, also said that available records from the performance report of two depots revealed that about 22,929.84 litres of PMS, valued at N7.06 billion, pumped to the two depots (Ibadan-Ilorin and Aba-Enugu) between June and July 2019 were not received by the depots.
This revelation formed part of six audit queries from the AuGF, as contained in the FGN’s Consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2019 submitted to the Clerk to the National Assembly, via a letter dated August 18, 2021 and signed by the Auditor-General, Adolphus Aghughu.
The report identified, amongst others, discrepancies between the amount reported by the NNPC as transfer to the Federation’s Account and what was reported by the AuGF.
It said that while the NNPC records showed that N1,272,606,864,000.00 was transferred by the Corporation, the amount recorded by the Accountant-General of the federation was N608,710,292,773.44, showing a discrepancy of N663,896,567,227.58.
The AuGF further said the Group Managing Director of the NNPC should be asked to explain the discrepancy between the two figures and remit the balance of N663,896,567,227.58 to the Federation Account or face sanction.
While alleging possible diversion of domestic crude, diversion of sale of un-utilised crude as well as possible loss of Federation Account revenue, the report said the management of the NNPC failed to respond to the audit query.
The report said, “The Group Managing Director of NNPC is requested to provide the complete schedule of allocation of crude oil to refineries from 1st January to 31st December, 2019; Furnish details of the sale of un-utilised crude oil and reconcile it with the total domestic crude oil of 107,239,436.00 bbls lifted in 2019 and remit amount realised from the sale of un-utilized crude oil to the Federation Account”.
The report said further that section 162(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) states that “the Federation shall maintain a special account to be called ‘the Federation Account’ into which shall be paid all revenues collected by the Government of the Federation, except the proceeds of the personal income tax of the personnel of the armed forces of the Federation, the Nigeria Police Force, the Ministry or department charged with the responsibility of Foreign Affairs and the residents of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja”.
It said in spite of these provisions, the NNPC spent US$6.410 million, (N1.955 trillion at N305/US$1) to fund Joint Venture Cash Calls (JVCC) and other federally-funded upstream projects without first paying the money into the Federation Account.
The AuGF said the Group Managing Director of NNPC should justify non-adherence to the transfer of all federation revenue to the Federation Account as provided by the Constitution, and ensure that all revenue is paid into the account going forward.
It said further that a total of 239,800 barrels of crude oil, valued at N5.498bn, was received in Warri and Kaduna refineries respectively between January and December 2019, with the source of the crude not validated due to the absence of source documents.
