The Office of the Auditor General of the Federation (OAuGF) has recommended that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should recover over $1 billion from 32 oil firms, allegedly arising from the breach of the rules surrounding the completion of the Nigeria Export Proceeds form (NXP).
Essentially, the NXP form gives authorised export dealers information on the goods for export, including the exporter’s bank, Nigeria Customs Services (NCS), Pre-shipment Inspection Agents (PIA), among others. It is a mandatory statutory document to be completed by all exporters for shipment of goods outside Nigeria.
In its “Performance Audit Report on Pre-shipment Inspection and Monitoring of Crude Oil and Gas Exports by Ministry of Finance”, the Auditor-General stressed that if ignored, the degeneration of the situation could give rise to either non-repatriation or delay in repatriation of export proceeds.
The report said that the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning had not fulfilled its mandate in ensuring the effective implementation of pre-shipment inspection of export of crude oil and gas. If well implemented, this, the Auditor-General said, is supposed to guarantee quality, quantity and price of Nigerian exports that conform to international standards and provide revenue assurance for Nigerians.
While specifically listing 32 oil and gas firms as culprits, it tasked the TMS to ensure that the Deposit Money Banks provide it with reports on exporters’ compliance or otherwise within 90 days’ rule on repatriation of export proceeds.
At the time of the audit, which was prepared by the erstwhile AuGF, Adolphus Aghughu, the Auditor-General stated that the situation had persisted because the oil and gas industry regulator wasn’t sanctioning defaulters as provided by section 19(a) of the guidelines.
The document also highlighted the absence of relevant government agencies at both shore and ship side, for the purpose of ascertaining quality and quantity of crude oil and gas exports, describing it as a dereliction of duty as provided in the relevant Act and reinforced in the guidelines.
In view of the findings and conclusions, it urged the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), which has recently subsumed the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to deny any exporter that defaults in filling the form NXP export permit, as prescribed by the export guidelines.
