Don't Miss


Home   >   Business   >   Industries   >   Energy   >   ‘Missing’ $10.8bn was spent by Nigerians – NNPC

‘Missing’ $10.8bn was spent by Nigerians – NNPC

By on January 22, 2014

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on Monday stated that the $10.8bn it allegedly failed to remit to the Federation Account was not missing but was instead spent by Nigerians.

Specifically, the Group Managing Director, NNPC, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, said if the fund was missing, then it was missing in the pockets of Nigerians.

In what appeared to be a reply to the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the NNPC boss stated that the corporation had persistently filed its claims to the Federation Account monthly.

While explaining how the money was spent, Yakubu said, “The $10.8bn is not missing; if it is missing, then, it is missing in the pockets of the beneficiaries, who are you and I.”

Okonjo-Iweala had stated that the NNPC should provide evidence on how the fund was spent.

“If the money was spent on operational cost, let us see evidence that it was spent in an authorised way. And if not, let the amount be remitted to the Federation Account,” she had said.

According to Yakubu, the biggest chunk of the $10.8bn is the subsidy claims incurred on petrol and kerosene.

He said, “This is part of the NNPC’s quarterly allocation, which it is to provide to the country, especially for petrol. The NNPC is the only importer and producer of kerosene in Nigeria. The corporation brings in kerosene and sells at less than N50 at designated depots, and the landing cost of this is over N150.

“Now, we compute these numbers on monthly basis and that amount plus the subsidy on the PMS, which we all know, amounts to about 80 per cent of this $10.8bn that we are talking about.”

The NNPC boss maintained that the corporation was shouldering a lot of costs for the country with respect to the oil and gas sector, stressing that there were similar scenarios on crude and petroleum product importation lines as well as on the legacy assets.

Yakubu said, “All these are obligations that are on the NNPC and these obligations come at a cost. We have more or less fully militarised both the crude oil supply and crude distribution lines in the country.”

 

 

[Punch]