Senate panel orders Finance Ministry, NNPCL, NUPRC to meet over unresolved NEITI audit issues.
The Federal Ministry of Finance has blamed the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) for its inability to provide records needed to respond to financial queries contained in the 2021–2023 Oil and Gas Sector Audit Report of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
The ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Raymond Omachi, disclosed this on Thursday while appearing before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts to answer questions arising from the audit report.
Among the issues raised by NEITI was a $3 billion pre-export financing loan obtained in 2012 to settle petroleum subsidy payments. The audit questioned how the loan was recovered from monthly federation revenue proceeds under the Pre-Export Financing and Project Eagle agreements.
NEITI also queried $722.6 million in dividends and interest paid by Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) to the former NNPC in 2021 on behalf of the Federation, alleging that the funds were neither remitted to the Federation Account nor properly accounted for.
The audit further questioned about N200 billion reportedly spent on refinery rehabilitation despite none of the country’s refineries being operational in 2021. Another query concerned $221.283 million in overhead costs incurred by the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) that year.
Responding, Omachi said the Finance Ministry was not directly involved in all the transactions and had struggled to obtain records from agencies responsible for them, particularly NNPCL and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
“We don’t have direct involvement in all the issues raised, and the required provision of financial records from the affected agencies, particularly NNPCL, NUPRC, etc., is not there,” he said.
The permanent secretary disclosed that the ministry had engaged Arthur Andersen LLP to conduct a forensic audit of the transactions and reconcile outstanding issues.
However, the committee, chaired by Senator Ibrahim Dankwambo, questioned why the forensic audit had not been completed after the ministry twice extended the timeline from six months to one year.
Omachi urged the committee to use its constitutional powers to compel NNPCL and NUPRC to appear and provide explanations on the transactions under review.
The committee subsequently directed the Finance Ministry to facilitate a meeting involving NNPCL, NUPRC and other relevant agencies to resolve the outstanding queries.
Dankwambo said the issues were of international interest and should be addressed in the interest of Nigeria, stressing the need for all relevant records and transactions to be properly clarified and reconciled.