Senate tackles NNPCL over discrepancies between N210trn expenses

By Haruna Salami

The Senate has given the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) one week to explain discrepancies discovered in the 2023 audited of the company particularly the N203 trillion approved expenses and N107 receivables.

This was contained in the audit query to the oil giant in the report of the Auditor General for the federation before the Senate Public Accounts Committee (SPAC).

The chairman of the committee, Senator Aliyu Wadada (Nasarawa West) disclosed at a meeting with the NNPC team led by the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Adedapo Segun and external Auditors the company on Wednesday.

Mr. Segun told the committee that the reconciliations between approved expenses (JV cash call) of N103 trillion and the actual amount of N107 trillion paid by NNPC (receivables) were performed, but added that there is a governance step, which had not taken place.

The CFO said “what the auditors will do under the circumstances is to secularize the parties, the JV partners, which they did, which is even more reliable than what we as NNPC would have told them. In doing that, they would have reached out to each of the JV partners and said, NNPC claims that your cash called X amount, and NNPC also claims that it’s paid you Y amount during this period. And that is what gave the auditors the comfort, because they got information from the counterparts of their clients, confirming that, yes, we cash called X, and NNPC paid us Y.

“To that extent, it’s basically a case of the same party on the same transaction, saying, I billed you a certain amount on the same transaction, and you paid a certain amount. But because the governance process had not been concluded, the netting-off did not happen. But individually, those amounts were confirmed by the JV partners. The amounts the JV partners billed as cash call, and the amounts NNPC paid to the JV partners as payment for JV, by the NNPC cash calls without circularization done, confirmed by the JV partners.

He said this was the first time NNPC was reporting from the NNPC the assets and liabilities that were transferred as a result of the provisions of the PIA from the federation to NNPC Limited. What was it that so reported as assets and liabilities of the federation in the books of National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) and what was it that so reported as the assets and liabilities of NNPC in the books of NNPC Corporation had become merged into one set of accounts of NNPC Limited.

However, the CFO’s explanation did not impress the committee members, prompting the chairman, Senator Wadada issue a directive to the NNPCL team to answer critical questions read out to it within one week

A total of eleven questions, which obviously prepared in advance were handed over to the NNPCL to provide response within one week.

A few of the questions read to the team include:

“Can you explain to this committee the difference between NAPIMS and NNPC?  What is the justification for preparing a separate audited financial statement for NAPIMS for more than three decades? And why did you discontinue from 2022 to 2023?

How can you convince this committee that at the point of stopping annual financial statement for NAPIMS, that all the assets and liabilities in the books of NAPIMS were transferred to NNPCL?

From the cover pages of the annual financial statements, did you not see that both accounts belong to NNPC, but fraudulently manipulated by writing National Petroleum Investment Services under Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation? NAPIMS cannot be an acronym for NNPC. This was designed to mislead the committee and and deceive the nation for several decades until 2022?

“Can you explain to this committee why you deceived the nation over the years by declaring operational losses and minimal profit for NNPC company while at the same time concealing humongous profits by NAPIMS?

The Senate Committee also wanted the NNPCL to furnish it with the list of individuals and organizations the oil company allegedly owe monies running into trillions of naira.