The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) yesterday said Nigeria needs to know the status of the $12.9 billion paid by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) between 2005 and 2013.
NEITI alleged that while the Corporation acknowledged receipts of the entire sum, it did not remit the $12.9 billion to the federation account.
Executive Secretary of NEITI, Waziri Adio, who made the allegation at the stakeholders’ dialogue on the 2013 oil and gas audit report yesterday in Abuja, also put the total under-assessment and under payment by companies due to contested pricing methodology at $599.8 million in 2013.
However, the NNPC has denied that the $12.9 billion from the NLNG is missing. The Corporation said the money was re-invested in other productive gas ventures over an eight years period.
The Corporation clarified that the fund is missing saying the balance of the dividend has been moved to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Providing more insight, the NNPC explained that it no longer warehouses government funds in strict compliance with the Treasury Single Account (TSA).
NNPC added that it took and ploughed back parts of the dividends into new trains by the NLNG.It equally listed the Brass LNG and Olokola LNG projects and other projects that benefited from the spending.
NNPC explained that the reinvestment in NLNG was part of its equity share of the cost of such expansion in its trains. The NLNG currently has six trains, which produce 22 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG.
Construction of a seventh train to complement the existing six-train structure is however, expected and this will up its total production capacity to 30MTPA.
Speaking further, the NEITI boss lamented that the country still does not know how much oil it produces as it relies on ‘say-so’ of the operators.
“Sixty years after we discovered oil, we have not established a scientific way of measuring our oil production. Eleven years after we flagged the absence of metering in our first audit report, we are yet to see any significant change. We need to finally slay the ghost of subsidy, N1.3 trillion processed as subsidy on petroleum products for 2013. This represents 26 per cent of the N4.98 trillion national budget for 2013,” he added.
Further defending the NNPC, Group General Manager, Debt Management, Godwin Okonkwo explained that the corporation had not committed any crime in the management of the fund.
Okonkwo said, “Before now, the position is that the NLNG belongs to the Federal Government and the NNPC is an arm of the Federal Government.
The NLNG dividends are there and if there was any kobo that went out of it, it was done with the approval of the Federal Government. No kobo leaves the NLNG dividend without appropriate approval. Part of the spending for NLNG dividends was the development of NLNG trains, Brass LNG and Olokola LNG and is not right for anybody to say the money is now missing.
“And with the current regime who says the NLNG belongs to the federation, the balance of the NLNG money has been moved over to the CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria). The money is not with the NNPC,” Okonkwo explained.