The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Thursday, raised a strong objection to what it called the latest gambit of the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and current Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II.
According to the NNPC, Sanusi, against the findings of the Senate Committee on Finance, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), has reiterated a false allegation of unremitted $20bn oil revenue against it, claiming that the issues surrounding his allegation have not been adequately addressed.
In a statement made available to BusinessDay, the NNPC said the respected traditional ruler had got it wrong again, in much the same way his failure to grasp the issues of remittances to the federation’s account led him into the error that the corporation failed to remit $49.8bn oil revenue to the Federal Government.
“Our attention has been drawn to the latest gambit of the former CBN governor and Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, to re-invent the wheel of his false allegations against the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation by insisting, during an interview with Christiane Amanpour of the Cable News Network (CNN), that the issues surrounding his allegation of unremitted $20bn have not been adequately addressed.
“According to the royal father during the interview, ‘one of them (issues) is the billions of dollars being paid in kerosene subsidies without appropriation by the National Assembly and against a presidential order, and we don’t know who authorised those payments, yet no one has owned up to say I authorised the payments, I made a mistake’.
“But it is on record that he (as CBN Governor) attended the hearings of the Senate Committee on Finance, where the issue of kerosene subsidy was exhaustively looked at vis-à-vis the presidential memo directing the removal of kerosene subsidy,” stated the NNPC rejoinder, signed by its group general manager, public affairs, Ohi Alegbe.
The NNPC explained that the process of implementing the Presidential directive was not followed through by the Minister of Petroleum Resources at that time, as required by law, which technically meant that kerosene subsidy was not removed.
“It was on the basis of this that the Senate committee on finance, in its report, recommended that the executive should prepare and present to the National Assembly, a supplementary budget to cover the expenditure in the sum of N90.6bn for PMS (premium motor spirit) subsidy 2012 and N685.9bn for kerosene subsidy expended without appropriation by the National Assembly,” Alegbe stated in the rejoinder.
It would be recalled that the Emir of Kano, in 2014, accussed the NNPC of not remitting a whopping sum of $49.8 billion, being proceeds of crude oil sales, into the federation account.
However, the corporation says the eventual reconciliation of the figures with relevant agencies showed that the balance of unremitted oil revenues was actually the amount spent by the NNPC on its operations in accordance with the law (NNPC Act), while accussing Sanusi of playing games with figures and submitting at various times that $10.8billion, $12 billion and $20bn, were the unremitted monies by the Corporation.
The NNPC insists that “both the Senate committee on finance and PricewaterhouseCoopers investigated the allegations and came out with reports exonerating the corporation.
“Why the royal father appears hell-bent on hanging a tag of corruption on the corporation, even when all the inquiries into his allegation of unremitted funds have proved otherwise, remains a mystery to us,” the NNPC rejoinder concluded.
YANGE IKYAA
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