The Federal Government has called for the invitation of an independent forensic audit to establish the veracity of claims of the missing funds from the Federation Account.
Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who was addressing members of the Senate Committee on Finance in Abuja on Thursday, revealed that on the $10.8bn originally agreed to be the shortfall from the NNPC, documents certified by PPPRA have been produced with the back-up of background documentation.
“But we do not feel that the reconciliation committee has the expertise and then we are calling for a forensic audit of these papers in order to lay to rest what the shortfalls may be, what the NNPC owes or does not owe the federation account”, she said.
“On the issue of $20bn the additional charges made by the CBN reconciliation committee feels that the matter ranges around legal issues and that it therefore requires legal experts to answer the questions of who owns these proceeds, NNPC or the federation account.
“As of December 2013, the cumulative unreconciled shortfall from NNPC payments stood at N1.792 trillion. For the $10.8bn, this is the shortfall as of July 2013, which mirrors the period the CBN originally looked at. Amount withheld for subsidy $8.766bn; holding cost for strategic reserves $0.499bn; crude oil and product losses $0.76bn; pipeline management cost $0.905bn for a total of slightly more than the $10.8bn we talked about. The data presented were all certified by PPPRA as being accepted by them and signed upon”.
While speaking, Governor of CBN, Mallan Sanusi Lamido Sanusi observed that the main issue as far CBN is concerned, is that the reconciliation was to determine the value of crude oil that NNPC shipped and how much has come back to the federation account.
“The CBN has established that NNPC shipped about $67bn worth of crude and about $47bn came back into the federation account, so there is a $20bn unremitted shortfall.
“The finance minister has explained that out of the $20bn, there is $6bn that NNPC says it shipped on behalf of NPDC, there is $2bn third part finance and the balance of $12bn from our books and from the NNPC submission is what is outstanding from the domestic crude of $28bn that was exported by NPDC. So as far as the CBN is concerned, the most important point to establish is that there is a difference of $20bn between what NNPC shipped and what it repatriated and we haven’t seen NNPC’s submission but based on public comments they’ve made”.
Sanusi insisted that there is no subsidy on kerosene and that the payment of kerosene subsidy is in violation of a written presidential directive. He recalled that CBN had questioned a specific part relating to oil produced in blocs under Strategic Alliance Agreement with Atlantic Energy.
“Our concern is to establish if the proceeds transferred to Atlantic Energy belongs to the federation account or not”, he added.
“I agree with the minister of finance that lawyers can come to proffer legal interpretation, but we have made no comments about the $2bn third-party financing. We have been given no documentation, even the $6bn for NPDC did not come into any account with the CBN. We have not seen it but we have taken the words of NNPC for it. For us, there is a question mark over that gap”.
Executive Secretary of PPPRA, Engineer Reginald Stanley said it had never been PPPRA’s procedure that whatever is certified is subjected to forensic audit.
Tendering a document that was worked upon by PPPRA, DPR and NNPC, he revealed that between January 2012 and July 2013, what was brought in by NNPC on PMS, which was duly certified, totalled N813,802,673,022 at (N154.87/$) and N543,890,398,525 or $3.51 billion for kerosene
