NNPC subsidiary spends $9 million on staff transfer cost in one year

THE National Petroleum Investment Management Services, NAPTIMS, a subsidiary of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, told the Senate that in 2016, it spent the sum of $9 million to address the cost of staff transfer in one year.

Speaking when it appeared before the Senator Omotayo Alasoadura led Committee on Petroluem, Upstream to defend the 2017 budget and explain performance of 2016 budget, General Manager of NAPIMS, ‎‎ Engr. Catherine Ngozi Iheme said that in 2016, its total budget stood at $168 million, out of which, $2 million was spent on Vehicles maintenance, just as she lump the budget sum, as capital and operating expenditure, a development which angered the Committee.

Iheme said, “on Staff transfers, We are part of the NNPC group and sometimes we have transfer of staff in and out of NAPIMS. So, this transfer cost is $9 million.‎”

‎The Committee however demanded for the details of the $168 million which she promised to make available at the next meeting, even as it has a running battle over the exchange rate used by the agency throughout the 2016 budget.

When asked ‎ about cash calls, Iheme said,”Recall that the Senate had raised issues on our cash calls for 2011 to 2015 and we have set up working committees to reconcile the books. So we just felt that we should present an update for 2016 that is why we just presented it.

“The total revenue budget was short by 28 percent as at the end of the year on what we have planned as oil and gas the revenue receipt was short by 28percent.

“In actual funding of the JV, we had a whooping minus 45 percent shortfalls in JV releases. This definitely created the gap we had in our production.”
She said, “The total budget is $171m equivalent but that is not what we budgeted for. We had some expenditures in dollars and some in naira. But using the N190 exchange rate, we had an equivalent of $171m. In the actual performance, we may have had some dollar components and some naira components.