JUST IMAGINE: NNPC Sold $20.9bn Crude, Remitted only $7bn ...

The House of Representatives on Thursday ordered another round of investigation into the sale of crude oil and its remittances by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to the nation's account. The focus of the fresh investigation is “volume and value of crude oil sales and remittances” by NNPC from January to date.

“One of the areas of concern is the NNPC’s Joint Venture operations. There are several billions of dollars that are unaccounted for. Some JV partners will come before the committee and give you information that the NNPC cannot contradict.

“Now, when you confront NNPC with this information, they don’t address the issues at stake. Reports from the Auditor-General’s Office have many cases against the NNPC. When this investigation is being conducted, I urge the ad-hoc committee to liaise with the Public Accounts Committee. We have information we can give to the committee to assist the investigation.”

These are the words of the Chairman, House Committee on Public Affairs, Mr. Adeola Olamilekan, said that the issue of accounting for crude oil sales by the NNPC had been on for the last seven years without a solution.

The investigation, which will last four weeks, is to be conducted by an ad-hoc committee of the House.

The resolution of the House followed a motion moved by Haruna Manu, who raised alarm that about $13.9bn crude oil revenue could not be accounted for by the NNPC. 

Manu, who quoted from statistics generated by the NNPC, told the House that the value for crude oil sales from January to August stood at $20.9bn. He, however, said only $7bn was remitted to the Federation Account by the corporation.

Manu added: “this shows that $13.9bn is not accounted for and it raises questions about how it was spent.”

He claimed that from September to date, the corporation had not given any account of crude oil sales.

Over the years, NNPC is emerging as the easiest corporate to steal Nigeria's money on a large scale.