National Economic Council, NEC, which was yesterday inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari, has revealed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, spent N3.8 trillion in three yearsThe without approval. This was as it explained that whereas the state oil corporation claimed to have earned N8.1 trillion from 2012 to May 2015, what it paid into the Federation Account was N4.3 trillion.
The revelation was brought to the fore by the Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, who was accompanied by his Kaduna and Zamfara states counterparts, Nasir el-Rufai and Abdulazeez Yari, while they briefed State House correspondents after the inauguration of the NEC at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Monday.
Oshiomhole disclosed that at the NEC meeting, which was the first by this administration, President Muhammadu Buhari instructed that the NNPC and the office of the Accountant General of the Federation were compelled to provide information in black and white on issues as they relate to the sale of the nation’s crude oil from 2012 to May 2015.
According to him, “We are talking about transparency, we are talking about change. And what we saw from those numbers, I believe that Nigerians are entitled to know, is that whereas the NNPC claimed to have earned N8.1 trillion, what NNPC paid into the Federation Account from 2012 to May 2015 was N4.3 trillion.
“What it means is that NNPC withheld and spent N3.8 trillion. The major revelation here is that the entire federation, that is, the federal government, the states and all the 774 local governments, the amount the NNPC paid into the Federation Account for distribution to this three tiers of government came to N4.3 trillion and NNPC alone took and spent N3.8 trillion.
“Which means that the cost of running NNPC was much more than the cost of running the federation; that tells you how much is missing, what is mismanaged, what is stolen and these are huge figures.
“We need to earn and spend, it is basic law in accounting that even if you run a cigarette shop where you sell Three-Rings (a cigarette brand), you don’t sell and spend. You sell, take to your bank account, and you budget for your procurement including cost of running your business.
“There is no enterprise manager who goes to the market and sells and just begin to spend, otherwise nobody needs to budget.
“And because you are running a democracy and you are running three tiers of government, and the resources involved belong to the three tiers of government, the only lawful way decreed by the constitution, this is not an administrative regulation, it is not a policy derivable from a circular, this is from the express letter and spirit of the Nigerian Constitution, as amended.
“So if NNPC, for example, needs to spend money, it is obliged to prepare its budget like every other business enterprise. That budget will be scrutinised by the executive and forwarded to the National Assembly and the National Assembly will accordingly appropriate it.
“If the federal government cannot spend without appropriation, why should any agency spend without appropriation? NIMASA (Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency), for example, whatever they earn, they are supposed to pay into Federation Account and also present their budget on their requirements. This is what the constitution provided for.
“And this is what President Buhari has promised to do that henceforth all monies must go to the Federation Account. What you need, you budget for. Nigeria cannot continue with NNPC earning the money and spending it.
“Where is transparency? Where is the role of the National Assembly? If they were doing their job, you won’t have a situation where the NNPC alone will spend N3.8 trillion and remit to the federal, states and local governments N4.3 trillion which means NNPC is taking about 47 per cent and that explains all the leakages we are talking about,” he stated.
Yesterday’s indictment of NNPC by the governors confirmed the forensic audit report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the 2012 report of the Presidential Committee on the Verification of Fuel Subsidies, which both revealed that the corporation deducts as much as 46 per cent of oil receipts to meet its expenditure before remitting the balance to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, CFR.
The Edo State governor, who had been consistently vocal in his allegations of sleaze in the oil sector, continued that: “Nobody is saying that parastatals should not spend money but they must return to budgeting. There is no major player, there is no major registered private company that will spend money without a budget.
“Even in a private company, you will have your board of directors looking at your revenue, total sales, your turnover, your personnel cost, running cost, visibles and invisibles and you have the budget for the year; that is how every sensible business runs.
“That is the way it was when President Buhari was Minister of Retroleum. So we are not reinventing the wheel, because that is the way it used to be and that is the way the constitution says it should be.”
Oshiomhole explained that council also reviewed the status of the Excess Crude Account (ECA), stating that the former Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had reported to the council in November 2014. He alleged that the account had $4.1 billion as at then, “but today the Accountant General Office reported we have $2.0 billion. Which means the Honourable Minister spent $2.1 billion without authority of the NEC”.
While alleging that the money from the ECA was not distributed to the states and local governments, the Governor added that, “This is why the NEC has set up a panel to look at what accrued, what it was spent for, when and by whom, so that Nigerians will have the full picture of all the transactions as regards the much talked-about Excess Crude Account.”
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