BY NKECHI NAECHE— The Commissioners of finance from the 36 states on Saturday insisted that Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) must remit unpaid N20billion to the federation account.
The Chairman of the Finance Commissioners Forum, Mr. Mamood Yunusa, disclosed this in Abuja that the total sum must be paid fully without further delay.
Yunusa Said: “Based on all provable assumption parameters, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is to remit N60 billion as royalty based on the verbal admission of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).
“And based on the MTEF submitted by NNPC, the Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) expected was to be 1.46 multiplied by 60 billion amounting to N87.6 billion.
“The sum of PPT and royalty originally expected in the federation account is N147 as against the N127 billion paid by NNPC.”
He added that the national oil company paid a total of N127 billion for May earnings instead of N147 billion, leaving a shortfall of N20 billion.
He noted that at last week’s inconclusive FAAC meeting NNPC “claimed it spent N3.5 billion on product leakages, pipeline vandalism, but the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) an agency that is supposed to keep such record claimed ignorance of the amount.”
“FAAC got more revenue from NNPC when crude oil was N50/barrel but now receives far less when the commodity is almost N80/barrel.
“Equal stakeholders in the business, NNPC owes it a duty to Nigerians in the spirit of openness and transparency and by the Act that established it to be open and transparent to all stakeholders.
“States as stakeholders in the federation account, are not expected to take NNPC’s account hook, line and sinker but are allowed by law to ask questions for clarity,”he said.
It would be recalled that NNPC had insisted that the N147 billion June 2018 remittance to the Federation Accounts and Allocation Committee (FAAC), was in line with the terms of agreement it had with governors on the matter.
According to the corporation the remittances is in line with the agreement NNPC had with the governors, that the corporation would make a monthly remittance of N112billion to FAAC subject to sufficient funds from sales of domestic crude oil allocation for the corresponding month after meeting cash call obligations on JVs, deductions of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS)-cost under recovery and pipeline maintenance.
NNPC noted it was able to surpass the terms of agreement with the governors on the monthly remittance for the month of June by N35billion, having taken a cue from their postures by taking from the sum meant for settling cash call obligations.
The corporation however regretted the Governors’ additional request of N40billion, saying it was unfortunate, given the fact that NNPC is set to exit the cash call phenomenon.
