Reps to audit NNPC revenue for last seven years

In from Smart Ali . . .
The House of Representatives on Tuesday hinted that it would investigate the revenue generated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) from the Joint Venture (JV) agreements to ascertain the Corporation’s state of finance.
NNPC is involved in some joint ventures with multinational oil majors like Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL), Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), Texaco Overseas Petroleum Company of Nigeria Unlimited (TOPCON), Elf Petroleum Nigeria Limited (EPNL), Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited (NAOC) and Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited (MPNU).
The Reps resolution followed the adoption of a motion sponsored by a member, Hon. Ossai Nicholas Ossai (PDP-Delta).
The lower chamber also resolved to set up an Ad-hoc Committee to inquire into the operations of the joint venture agreements especially as regards leakages and carry out forensic assurance review of the joint venture books with the view to establish the amounts of income accrued to the joint venture partners in the past seven years.
Part of the adhoc committee’s brief is to ascertain the actual amount remitted to the Federation Account and report back to the House within seven days.

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while arguing the motion said: “Federal Government’s contribution to the funding of the joint venture is sourced from the Appropriation Acts and released by the NNPC through a system of monthly Cash Calls which frees the government from any other cost obligation.
“Besides the lifting of oil in the agreed sharing ratio, there are associated incomes or miscellaneous revenues accruable to the joint venture, for which government is entitled to a good share in accordance with the joint operation agreements.
“Section 162(1) of the Constitution of Nigeria requires all collectable revenues of the government of the federation to be paid into the federation account.
“The House is concerned that income from such sources as sales of assets, marine transportation, haulage or pipeline transportation, etc which form part of the joint venture operations are unaccounted for and usually paid into the Distributable pool by the oil companies which are the operators of the joint venture.”
Some of the lawmakers who spoke in favour of the motion were Wole Oke (PDP-Osun) and Buba Yusuf Yakubu (APC-Adamawa) who urged the present administration to diversify the economy, by providing enabling environment for states to develop their mineral resources and reduce over-dependence on oil revenue.
The lawmaker also alleged that these sources of the joint venture incomemamounting to billions of naira or millions of dollars haulage or pipeline transportation were unaccounted for. He added that operator-companies net-off these incomes against expenses (already settled) in collusion with officials of the NNPC.

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