Reps committee accuses NNPC of not remitting fund to consolidated account

Rep. Abdulmumin Jibrin, the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Finance, has alleged that the NNPC has never paid revenue it generated into the consolidated revenue fund. Jibrin (PDP-Kano) said this in Abuja on Monday at an investigative hearing with some revenue generating agencies of government over non-remittance of revenue into the consolidated revenue fund.

“The case of NNPC is unique because NNPC has never paid a dime into the consolidated revenue fund. That is why we decided to put a lot of emphasise to see why it is the case,’’ he said. He said that the committee examined the NNPC books and discovered that the chunk of revenue generated by the corporation came from its subsidiaries. According to him, records show that most of the subsidiary companies are operating on profit, irrespective of the margin while few are operating at loss, particularly the refineries.

“For us, we also have a responsibility to ensure that those that are making profit are encouraged and are strengthened and those losing, we have the responsibility to know why they are losing,’’ Jubrin said. He said that the exercise was not aimed at embarrassing anyone but to dialogue and arrive at an amicable way of remitting money into the consolidated fund. “We have not had any situation where we go into thug of war with agencies, what we want to do is to discuss with the agencies and establish ways that if they have backlogs, they will pay.

“If they dispute those backlogs, they should let us sit down and discus rationally and arrive at a position.’’ Jubrin, however, said that the NNPC boss attributed the development to vandals and the taking of crude oil at international price thus making NNPC to operate at a loss. He observed that NNPC had consistently given itself discount not disclosed to the Nigerian public. In his brief presentation, Mr Hassan Momoh, the Managing Director of Pipeline Product Marketing Company (PPMC), said that all bank accounts where remittances of product sales were paid were entirely that of NNPC.
“I make direct remittances to NNPC through the marketers to designated accounts,’’ he said. He said that the company was 100 per cent owned by the NNPC, adding that the corporation was in a better position to give account of revenue that accrued to it. All subsidiaries of the NNPC were given up to Tuesday to make their presentations.