House mandates NNPC to provide evidence of remittances to federation account

Chinazor Megbolu

The House of Representatives Committee on finance has mandated the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to provide evidence of revenue remittances into the consolidation federation account.

The panel, set up by the House, is investigating ministries, department and agencies (MDAs) revenue remittances into the federation account.

The committee ordered NNPC to provide it with evidences of remittances from 2014 to 2019.

The panel further asked the NNPC to provide details of N2,725,006,000 billion advanced consideration revenue.

It stated the amount of N1,904,495,000 million and N820,511,000 were received from customers in to the account of the corporation in 2018 and 2019.

The NNPC in April 2021, hinted that its projected monthly remittance to the federation accounts allocation committee (FAAC) for May will be zero.

The Group General Manager, Mr. Bello Abdullahi, in his remarks during the hearing, said it has subsidiaries registered under Company And Allied Matters Act (CAMA), adding that the corporation pays taxes and other statutory obligations to the relevant authorities.

He, however, buttressed that they do not remit revenue to the federation account.

Meanwhile, a member of the panel from Delta State, Mr. Nicholas Ossai, pointed out that the details of remittances will enable it carry out reconciliation with the aim of improving revenue.

“We will want you to furnish us with the details of the advanced consideration received from customers in 2018 and 2019 which amounted to N1.904, 495, 000 in 2019 and N820, 511, 000 and also provide the details of the customers and the amount paid by each and any other relevant information.

“It was also observed that you have a budget performance for the year 2014 to 2019 but only the audited account of 2018 and 2019 were provided; provide the audited account for 2014 to 2017 so that we can do some reconciliation.

“It can be deduced from your budget performance that you have unspent balances from 2014 to 2019, provide your schedule of remittances of your unspent balances to the Consolidated Revenue Fund to enable us do some reconciliations,” Ossai said.

The Deputy Chairman of the committee from Niger state, Mr. Saidu Abdullahi, on his part, posited that it was wrong for NNPC not to pay dividend into the federation account.

According to him; “if you said outside of the tax they pay, they do not pay any dividend to NNPC, I think there is flaw in that, I cannot have a company that will only be responsible for payment of tax.

“I have an objective for establishing the company; when next you are to appear before us, the appearance will have to be with the heads of the subsidiaries including the GMD of NNPC.

“As a country, it is time we must sit down as citizens and talk to ourselves, we have a responsibility of making this country work and for us to make it work is by doing what is right.

“We have seen loopholes, we have seen leakages; we cannot over emphasize that the economy of this country has the capacity to fund a N15 trillion budget; what we need to do is to ensure every agencies is on its foot and ensure we do what is right”.

The committee did rule that Group Managing Director, Dr. Mele Kyari and all NNPC subsidiaries appear before it at a date to be fixed by the committee.