Reps ask NNPC to provide evidence of remittances into federation account

The house of representatives committee on finance has asked the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to submit details of revenue remittances into the consolidation federation account.

The panel mandated by the house is investigating ministries department and agencies (MDAs) revenue remittances into the federation account.

At its sitting on Tuesday, the committee asked NNPC to provide it with evidences of remittances from 2014 to 2019.

The panel also demanded NNPC to provide details of N2,725,006,000 billion advanced consideration revenue.

The amount — N1,904,495,000 million and N820,511,000 — were received from customers in to the account of the corporation in 2018 and 2019 respectively.

There has been concern over poor remittance of revenue by ministries, department and agencies (MDAs) into the federation account.

This has affected the monthly allocation to states by the federation accounts allocation committee (FAAC).

In April, NNPC disclosed that its projected monthly remittance to the federation accounts allocation committee (FAAC) for May will be zero.

Speaking during the hearing, Bello Abdullahi, group general manager, federation account of NNPC, said it has subsidiaries registered under Company And Allied Matters Act (CAMA).

He said the corporation pays taxes and other statutory obligations to the relevant authorities, adding that they do not remit revenue to the federation account.

Nicholas Ossai, member of the panel from Delta state, said the details of remittances will enable it carry out reconciliation with the aim of improving revenue.

“We will want you to furnish us with the details of the advanced consideration received from customers in 2018 and 2019 which amounted to N1.904, 495, 000 in 2019 and N820, 511, 000 and also provider the details of the customers and the amount paid by each an any other relevant information,” he said.

“It was also observed that you have a budget performance for the year 2014 to 2019 but only the audited account of 2018 and 2019 were provided; provide the audited account for 2014 to 2017 so that we can do some reconciliation.

“It can be deduced from your budget performance that you have unspent balances from 2014 to 2019, provide your schedule of remittances of your unspent balances to the Consolidated Revenue Fund to enable us do some reconciliations.”

Saidu Abdullahi, deputy chairman of the committee from Niger state, said it was wrong for NNPC not pay dividend into the federation account.

“If you said outside of the tax they pay, they do not pay any dividend to NNPC, I think there is flaw in that, I cannot have a company that will only be responsible for payment of tax,” he said.

“I have an objective for establishing the company; when next you are to appear before us, the appearance will have to be with the heads of the subsidiaries including the GMD of NNPC.

“As a country, it is time we must sit down as citizens and talk to ourselves, we have a responsibility of making this country work and for us to make it work is by doing what is right.

“We have seen loopholes, we have seen leakages; we cannot over emphasize that the economy this country has the capacity to fund a N15 trillion budget; what we need to do is to ensure every agencies is on its foot and ensure we do what is right.”

The committee ruled that Mele Kyari, group managing director and all NNPC subsidiaries appear before it — at a date to be fixed committee.