June, 30, 2015 – President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday set up a 4-man committee, comprising only serving governors to probe accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC) from 2012 to 2015, the last four years of the Goodluck Jonathan’s regime.
It is not clear if the President will achieve his aims, using non-professionals, most especially, since Pricewaterhousecoupers, a professional accountancy firm probed the institution with results which Nigerians are not comfortable with.
The President set up the committee after inaugurating the National Economic Council(NEC) in Abuja. The committee members are Chairman of the Governors Forum and Zamfara State Governor, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari; Governor Adams Oshiomhole (Edo), Mr. Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna) and Mr. Emmanuel Udom (Akwa Ibom)
The probe we gathered followed revelation that the (NNPC) earned N8.1 trillion, during the period covered but remitted only N4.3 trillion into the account of the federal government.
The probe is espected to centre on the withheld N3.5trn and how the money w sa spent.
The NEC will however be chairmed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who will draw up a enconomic agenda for the Muhammadu Buhari-led government.
Speaking at a joint press conference , the council said it got the briefing from the Director of Funds on the unremitted funds by the NNPC.
“On that line, four-man committee was constituted to go through the books of the NNPC and the Excess Crude Account as well as the Federation Account. They are to check the books of the NNPC especially the issue of the Excess Crude and what is not remitted to the Federation Account,” the chairman of the NGF said.
Speaking on the development, Governor Oshiomhole said it was the first time the NEC met under the instructions of the President and NNPC and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation were compelled to provide information on issues related to the sales of Nigeria’s crude from 2012 to May 2015.
“This has not happened before and for us this is profound – talking about transparency, talking about change.
“And what we saw from those numbers, which I believe Nigerians are entitled to know, is that whereas the NNPC claimed to have earned about N8.1 trillion what NNPC paid into the Federation Account in 2012 all through 2015, end of May was N4.3 trillion.
“Now, the major revelation here for me is that the entire Federation, that is the Federal government, the state governments and all the 774 local governments the amount the NNPC paid into the Federation Account for distribution to these tiers of government came to N4.3 trillion and NNPC also took and spent N3.5 trillion
“Which means that the cost of running NNPC is even much more than the cost of running the Federal Government.
“That tells you how much, talking about what is missing what is mismanaged what is stolen, there are huge numbers here.”
The governor said the former minister of finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, reported by Nov 2014 “that we had $4.1 billion in the account but today the Accountant General office reported that you have $2.0 billion in the account’’, he said.
