Members of the Federation Account Allocation Committee rose from a late meeting Monday night with a resolution to probe the circumstances surrounding the delay by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to remit to government the $1.48 billion (N294.5 billion) uncovered by a recent forensic audit.

The forensic audit conducted by the audit firm of PriceWaterHouseCoopers on behalf of the Federal Government on the operations of the NNPC had indicted the management of the national oil company for various questionable transactions.

The audit followed an allegation that the NNPC had failed to account for $20 billion oil money. The audit only found $1.48 billion was missing, the Nigerian government said, after releasing some details of the report. The government has refused to make the full report public.

Part of the recommendations in the report said the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, the upstream subsidiary of the NNPC, should refund the $1.48 billion to the Federation Account.

But, months after the Auditor General of the Federation, Samuel Ukura, who presented extracts of the report, asked thw NNPC to remit the funds, FAAC said no money has been paid.

Consequently, during the meeting for the month of March, FAAC constituted a ministerial committee to investigate the circumstances behind the delay.

The Chairman, Forum of Finance Commissioners of FAAC, Timothy Odaah, told reporters after the meeting on Monday that the committee was worried that the delay was negatively impacting the revenue available for distribution among the tiers of government.

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