NNPC addresses crude oil export allegations, breaching Buhari’s order

Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has denied claims that it exported $1 billion crude oil without records in four years.

Ripples Nigeria had reported two days ago that Auditor General of the Federation (AuGF) alleged that the NNPC Limited exported 17.877 million barrels of crude, valued at $1,020,969,281.12, between 2016 and 2020 without proper documentation.

This was obtained from a document published by the Auditor General of the Federation, which was also reported to have faulted the NNPC for appointing two Pre-Shipment Agents (PIAs) and one Monitoring and Evaluation Agent (MEA) in 2017.

The appointments were made two years after President Muhammadu Buhari canceled the appointments of all service providers.

Also, the office of the auditor indicted the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation for making payments of N73 billion to PIAs and MEAs for inspection and monitoring of oil and gas exports.

READ ALSO:NNPC destroys alleged illegal filling station, barge uncovered by Tompolo’s firm

In reaction to the report via its Twitter handle, NNPC’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Garba-Deen Muhammad, denied all the claims on Thursday, stating “Our attention has been drawn to an online publication, alleging that NNPC exported 17.877 million barrels of crude oil without proper documentation in four years (2016 to 2020).

“The Auditor-General’s report in reference did mention 32 oil marketing companies involved in the non-completion of the NXP forms, but that does not in any way mean that the proceeds from the sale of the said crude were not repatriated into the coffers of NNPC and consequently into the Federation Accounts for Federation related barrels.”

Part of the tweets also reads, “It should also be noted that NNPC does not appoint Inspection agents as alleged, but rather, it is the sole responsibility of the Federal Ministry of Finance.

“Therefore, the general public is advised to disregard the said malicious publication, and instead, visit the relevant Auditor-General’s website to see the full content of the audit report, and be guided accordingly.”

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