Tag Archives: NNPC Audit

Jonathan Has “Great Interest” In NNPC Audit Report- Auditor General

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The Auditor General of the Federation (AuGF), Samuel Ukura, on Tuesday blamed the inability of his office to publish the report of the forensic audit on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over the missing $20 billion oil fund on presidential interest.

He said the the Goodluck Jonathan presidency had far more special interest in the matter than his own office and the auditors. Several months after PriceWaterhouseCoopers Limited completed investigations into the allegation of unremitted oil revenues, the report was not released to the public despite demands by Nigerians.

On Sunday, April 27, President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, had threatened that his administration would probe the allegations on assumption of office. Apparently reacting to Mr. Buhari’s threat, President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday ordered immediate release of the report to Nigerians.

Presidential spokesperson, Reuben Abati, said the decision to release of the full report was to demonstrate that the present administration had nothing to hide over the matter. But in a response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by PREMIUM TIMES, the AuGF blamed the long delay by his office in releasing the full audit report on the Presidency.

In response to this newspaper’s request for the document, days before the presidency released it, Mr. Ukura said he was not in a position to release the report because the presidency has “great interest” in the information contained therein. “After a careful review of the information, it is my considered opinion that the Presidency has a great interest in the information,” the auditor general said through his representative, Uche Okafor-Agbi.

He therefore advised PREMIUM TIMES to redirect its request for the report to the presidency which had custody of the document. “You may wish to channel your application accordingly,” Mr. Ukura said.

Mr. Ukura’s letter to PREMIUM TIMES was apparently dispatched hours before the presidency released the audit report but it arrived this newspaper’s office hours after the document had been made public.

Although the Constitution does not provide for the AuGF to submit audit reports to any arm of the executive, but to the National Assembly, Mr. Ukura, on February 5, presented highlights of the report, on the orders of the president.

Apparently deferring to the presidency, he failed to forward the report to the National Assembly as demanded by the Constitution.

The highlights had indicted the management of NNPC, demanding the refund of $1.48 billion by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NNPC upstream subsidiary, for various unreconciled transactions.

In his letter to PREMIUM TIMES, the auditor-general said under the Federal Civil Service Rules, the audit report was carried out by PwC as an assurance engagement in which the reporting channel was duly spelt out in the international auditing standard.

Under the circumstance, he said neither his office nor the auditing firm had greater interest in releasing the information in accordance with the FOI Act 2011.

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NNPC Audit Shows It Overpaid State, But Still Owes

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A forensic audit of Nigeria’s state oil firm released on Monday said the company, accused of corruption, actually overpaid the state by almost $750 million, but should still pay it an additional $1.5 billion.

OutgoingPresident Goodluck Jonathan released the audit days after his elected replacement, Muhammadu Buhari, pledged to issue the report and crack down on corruption in the energy company once in office.

The probe of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) books was instituted last year after former central bank governor Lamido Sanusi said the firm had withheld $20 billion in oil revenue from government coffers, jeopardising the country’s finances.

Details in the PriceWaterhouseCoopers audit said NNPC actually overpaid by $0.74 billion in the period between January 2012 to July 2013, after remitting $50.81 billion to federation accounts of the $69.34 billion it had received.

The balance of $18.53 billion was accounted for through various operational costs, unremitted revenues by a subsidiary and gasoline and kerosene subsidies, it said.

Sanusi had told a Senate committee in 2014 that NNPC had received $67 billion and handed over only $47 billion.

After the allegations, Jonathan publicly dismissed the claim and replaced Sanusi, saying the banker had mismanaged the central bank’s budget. Sanusi has since become Emir of Kano, the country’s second-highest Islamic authority.

The PwC audit, however, said NNPC and its upstream subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, should hand over $1.48 billion arising from unsubstantiated costs, duplicated subsidy claims and computation errors.

The report also recommended an overhaul of how NNPC is run.

“The NNPC model of operation must be urgently reviewed and restructured, as the current model which has been in operation since the creation of the corporation cannot be sustained,” it said in the 200-page document.

An earlier one-page version of the report, which had been due out in September, was released in February.

The affair has caused consternation in a nation long accustomed to reports of grand graft in Africa’s largest oil producer.

Analysts say Buhari, 72, managed to oust Jonathan in elections last month because voters believed he would tackle graft in Africa’s largest economy.

Credit: Reuters