Auditor-General Says NNPC Fails To Account For 107 Million Barrels Of Crude

Auditor-General Says NNPC Fails To Account For 107 Million Barrels Of Crude

The Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation has said the defunct Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), now Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, has failed to account for about 107,239,436 barrels of crude oil lifted for domestic consumption in 2019.

The office made the allegation in its 2019 audit report presently being considered by the Committees on Public Accounts at the Senate and House of Representatives.

According to the report, about 22,929.84 litres of Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol, valued at N7.06bn and pumped to the two depots (Ibadan-Ilorin and Aba-Enugu) between June and July 2019 were not received by the depots.

These are part of the issues raised by the office in the six audit queries issued against the NNPC.

The report noted discrepancies between the amount reported by the NNPC as transfer to the Federations Account and what was reported by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.

While the NNPC records showed that N1,272,606,864,000 was transferred by the corporation, the Accountant-General of the Federation said it was N608,710,292,773.44, leaving a gap of N663,896,567,227.58.

Consequently, the auditor-general said the Group Managing Director of the NNPC should be asked to explain the discrepancy between the two figures and remit the balance of N663,896,567,227.58 to the Federations Account or face sanction.

According to the report, NNPC transferred the sum of N519,922,433,918.46 to the Federation Account based on transfer mandates.

The Auditor-General, therefore, demanded that the NNPC provides “reconciliation statement for the difference of N88,787,862,853.96 between AGF’s figure of N608,710,296,772.42 and NNPC’s figure per transfer mandate of N519,922,433,918.46.”

The report read in part, “Audit observed that 107,239,436.00 barrels of crude oil were lifted as domestic crude, while the allocation of crude oil to refineries for a billing date of 9th January to 29th May 2019 was 2,764,267.00 bbls valued at N55,891,009,960.63.

“Information on the sale of un-utilised crude oil by refineries for 2019 was not provided, and information on crude oil allocations from 30th May to 31st December 2019 was not provided for scrutiny.”

The office alleged possible diversion of domestic crude, diversion of sale of un-utilised crude as well as loss of Federation Account revenue, saying the management of the NNPC failed to respond to the audit query.

The report said, “The Group Managing Director of NNPC is requested to provide the complete schedule of allocation of Crude Oil to Refineries from 1st January to 31st December, 2019, furnish details of the sale of un-utilized crude oil and reconcile it with total domestic crude oil of 107,239,436.00 bbls lifted in 2019 and remit amount realised from sale of un-utilized crude oil to the Federation Account.”

Citing Section 162(1) of the 1999 Constitution, the Auditor-General said the NNPC spent $6.410m (N1.955tn at N305/$1) to fund Joint Venture Cash Calls and other federally-funded upstream projects such as gas infrastructure development, Brass LNG, crude oil pre-export inspection agency expenses, frontier exploration services, EGTL operating expenses and NESS fee; and another N55.157bn on pipeline security and maintenance without first paying the money into the Federations Account.