Govs read riot act to NNPC, accuse corporation of fraud

Worried by the inability of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to generate and remit accurate revenue to the Federation Account, governors on Wednesday met behind closed-doors with Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo.

The governors who are alleging fraud in the NNPC, expressed displeasure over the handling of revenue remittance by the state-owned oil corporation.

The meeting with Osinbajo, who is chairman of the National Economic Committee (NEC) held at the State House, Abuja.

Recall that the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting last month failed to hold for the second consecutive time as supposed owing to NNPC’s failure to remit accurate revenue.

The governors had therefore, at their meeting with the Vice President, directed that the corporation stop payment of any form of royalty to the Federation Account.

They also ordered that every payment should be paid to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) as stipulated by law.

In addition, they directed for the closure of all filling stations located within 10 kilometers of any Nigerian borders, and installations of tracking devices to monitor the movement of tankers to reduce smuggling of petroleum products out of the country.

Governors’ Forum chairman of and Zamfara State governor, Abdulaziz Yari, who addressed state House correspondents after the meeting expressed disappointment with the reintroduction of subsidy which the NNPC calls recovery.

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“This is the second time we are meeting with NNPC in respect of remittances into the federation account. And, governors and the federal government are not satisfied with the way remittances are being made because there are so many questions raised on Nigeria, more especially on the 425,000 barrel domestic and 180,000 barrel component of Nigeria from the Joint Venture Partners.

“We met last week, the NNPC and the NGF came and briefed our chairman of the National Economic Council. We raised three issues, one, the issue of royalties. Each and every barrel taken out of the country there is either 17 or 24 percent of it as royalty and there is 17 or 20 per cent as tax,” he said.

 

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