Nigeria to probe state oil firm over alleged unaccounted sales
Nigeria’s lower house of parliament Thursday voted to probe giant state-run oil firm NNPC over its alleged failure to account for about $13 billion from crude sales this year.
The House of Representatives adopted a motion sponsored by one of its members, Haruna Manu, asking the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to account for the volume and value of crude sold in the first eight months of 2013.
“NNPC has remained in a dark tunnel. How long will it remain in that tunnel?,” asked lawmaker Samson Osagie during the debate before the motion was adopted.
Lagos-based AIT private television showed footage of the debate, following which the house mandated its committee to probe NNPC.
Manu said that while the NNPC claimed to have remitted $20 billion to the government (federation) account as crude oil sales from January to August, documents indicated that it remitted only about seven billion dollars.
“All returns accruing to the NNPC from crude oil sales and such transactions in the oil sector are supposed to be remitted to the Federation Account in accordance with Section 162 (1) of the constitution,” he said.
The oil industry has often been accused of graft and mismanagement.
Nigeria lost $6.8 billion since 2009 through a fuel subsidy programme rife with corruption, a parliamentary panel report said in April last year, calling for prosecutions and an overhaul of the state oil firm.
The report detailed what has long been suspected in Nigeria, describing a lack of accounting, overpayments, wilful disregard for regulations and outright incompetence in managing the programme.
The committee had also called for NNPC to be restructured.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, imports much of its fuel despite its oil wealth due to a lack of refining capacity, a situation also blamed on corruption and mismanagement.
