NNPC Fails to Defend Budget

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation failed to respond to the queries raised over the the execution of its 2011 budget, as it was unable to give relevant  answers on how it spent the $8.722bn (about N1.35tn) approved for the corporation by the law makers in last year’s budget.

In a probe panel  before the National Assembly’s Joint Committee on Petroleum (Upstream), NNPC representatives  failed to  reconcile documents indicating that it had  received about $8.722bn and another document that indicated a figure of almost $9.387bn for the capital year.

The Group General Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services, Mr. Morrison Fiddi. Who represented the GMD, Mr. Austen Oniwon tried different explanations on how the money was expended.

Explaining the implementation of the corporation’s budget in 2011,Fiddi said it recorded 125 per cent performance on behalf of the government in its joint venture activities.

He said that even though NNPC needed   $10.553bn in its 2011 budget proposal, it was given  only $8.722bn for the year.

Fiddi affirmed, “For 2011, we requested for $10.55bn but $8.722bn was approved. In totality, the performance for 2011 was 88 per cent. The security issue in the year affected our operations in the Niger Delta.
The security situation was very high but we are improving, and hoping that 2012 will be good.

“Also, pipeline vandalism affected our target; we were able to achieve 88 per cent out of the 100 per cent we were expected to achieve.
Hopefully, all these will be addressed in 2012.”

Unfortunately,  Fiddi’s presentation  pointed that $8.262 was the actual performance as against $8.722bn that was approved for the budget..

Also, another Query came from  the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum (Upstream), Mr. Ajibola Muraino, who said that the  figure of $9.387bn as the approval for the. 2011  budget contradicts the  $8.722bn as claimed by the law makers.

Senator Emmanuel Paulker,  Chairman of the joint committee, continuously probed  to know  how the corporation came up with the $9.387 listed on page 17 of the document given to it for deliberation.

In his response,  Fiddi had taken time out to consult with members of his team on the matter,  even though he was unable to come up with reasonable answers.

Talking on the discrepancies,  Paulker,  said, “You told us in your earlier presentation that you over-performed in certain areas. Yet,the chart you presented here to us doesn’t reflect anything like that.
Where are the figures because the ones you have presented to us do not tally at all?

“This country belongs to all of us and we should be able to share ideas on how to move it forward. Go and reconcile your figures and come back to us.”

Kabiru Marafa,  the Vice-Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream),  noted that the NNPC has got the tactics  of dribbling law makers with just mere graphic representation and not practicable explanation.

He said, “What are these tables and graphs for? You are supposed to tell us in details what you are going to earn and how you are going to spend it. Whenever we invite you, you bring beautiful graphs and no one here is an engineer to decode and interpret all these graphs.

“Even though we have very limited time to finish all these things, we have to respect each other because what you are doing smacks of lack of respect for the National Assembly. We need you to give us specific details because even Mr. President doesn’t present graphs to us as budget estimates.”

But Fiddi on the. Contrary debunked the assertion of the NNPC stating that the use of graphs was not meant to confuse the law makers, According to him,  “We are not here to hide anything. We only use the graphs to explain our performance. Give us time so that we can come up with the details”