There is $1.486 billion generated from gas sales from the Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC) divested assets between January 2013 and December 2016?
The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have not been able to trace the cash.
According to documents in possession of The Nation, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) reported that the amount was paid into the Federation Account but a scrutiny of the account by FAAC showed that it was never paid.
FAAC set up a sub-committee to investigate the issue and it was reported that “the same figure was captured by DPR for which the sum of $114.45 million was ascertained as Royalty. …NNPC/NPDC requested that the sum of $1.486 billion should be considered as part-payment for the Good and Valuable consideration of the NAOC divested assets that were valued at $1.540 billion, which the Ad-hoc Committee disagreed on the premise that there was need to verify the amount claimed by NNPC.”
According to the report submitted to FAAC on December 16, “the chairman (of the sub-committee) reported that out of the established NLNG Gas Sales value of $1,165,827,482.74 for the period under consideration, a total of $85,111,629.90 was transferred to MCA Escrow Account, leaving a balance of $1,080,715,852.94 as the amount paid into the Federation Account.”
FAAC was also informed that NNPC paid another $126,753,615.34 into the federation account as NLNG-NAOC gas sales supplementary reconciliation invoices for the period, thus bringing the total amount paid by NNPC/NPDC to $1,207,469,468.28 and not $1,486,621,856.04 as earlier claimed by the oil giant.
The sub-committee chairman reported that it “upheld that the amount established as earlier paid to the Federation Account be netted off the Good and Valuable Consideration of $1.540 billion, leaving outstanding Good and Valuable Consideration for the NAOC assets to stand at $322,530,531.72,” according to the document.
FAAC, therefore, asked NNPC to expedite action on the reconciliation of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) to enable the sub-committee conclude its exercise.
Also, the FAAC has confirmed that the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) is owing the Federation Account N1,313,915,561,688.39 (January 2010 to December 2016).
To recover the debt, FAAC has reported NNPC to the National Economic Council (NEC), which is headed by the Vice President for its failure to remit NPDC’s indebtedness to the federation account.
FAAC resolved to report NNPC to NEC in view of its refusal to fulfil its promise to make the money available for distribution during the last FAAC meeting.
The Director, Home Finance, Federal Ministry of Finance, was directed to compile NNPC’s infractions for NEC for sanctions.
