Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts on Tuesday, disagreed with the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Mele Kyari, over the under-remittance of 3.87 billion naira oil revenue, from the coffers of the Agency to the federation account.
Chairman of the House Committee, Wole Oke and other lawmakers at a resumed investigative hearing on non remittances of revenue to the federation account, noted that the revenue accruing to the federation account from NNPC had nosedived Sharply .
Oke who quizzed the NNPC boss and other officials of the agency on the report of the Auditor-General of the Federation, noted with dismay that the NNPC in 2015 had generated over 2.4 trillion naira, deducted over 8.5 billion naira and remitted 1.57 trillion naira to the federation account.
Oke also noted that a technical report of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, had revealed that the NNPC had deducted over 865.4 billion from its accounts from the audit queries by the Auditor-General of the Federation.
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But the GMD in his response to the queries, said the deductions are first level deductions backed by law.
He also accepted responsibility for every submission made by other officials of the agency on the matter under investigation by the committee.
Kyari also told the committee that the NNPC Act empowers the Agency to deduct a certain percentage of its revenues, before remittance to the federation account.
The Kyari added that all the financial transactions of the agency are in the public dormain and is published on monthly basis.
While stressing that no agency of Government is allowed to generate money and spend same, the Committee Chairman, Woke Oke said that the committee will set up a technical committee to look into the matter.
Oke also said that NNPC and the FIRS are the only two government agencies that have outstanding audit queries with the committee, adding that the queries had featured in all years.
Edited by Tunde Orebiyi
