Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, has disclosed of plans by the President Bola Tinubu government to probe the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
Edun gave the assurance on Wednesday in Abuja at the launch of the Nigeria Development Update (NDU), titled “Turning the Corner, Time to Move from Reforms to Results”.
The Minister said: “There will be earnest scrutiny and I am sure NNPCL is getting ready for that. We want revenue to come into the government coffers from NNPCL and all other revenue agencies.”
A former Emir of Kano, and ex- Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, recently accused the NNPCL of failing to remit enough dollars from crude oil sales to the federation Account, insisting this is responsible for the acute dollar shortages in Nigeria.
He called for a thorough investigation of the NNPCL, pointing out that his insistence on the probe of the NNPC (as it then was), during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, resulted in his removal as CBN governor.
Sanusi posited: “The exchange rate needs to be stabilised and we have to address the fundamental question, why is there no money coming in? Why is the NNPCL not able to bring in dollars? Am sorry this is the question that cost me my job and I will continue asking this question until NNPCL fixes it up or until I die. Where are the dollars? We need to shine a light on the NNPCL.
“The finance minister cannot tell you because he doesn’t have a monitoring system that reports to him. The finance minister can’t tell you how many barrels of petrol we produce and export. It is only the NNPCL that can give those figures. The finance ministry needs to know how much oil we produce daily, how much we sell, and where the money is going.
“We are no longer paying subsidies so where are the dollars? It was under recovery during the subsidy era and that has been stopped, so where is the money? This was the issue I raised for which I was suspended, well you can suspend me again. The NNPCL is the most opaque oil company in the world.
“When I was in the central bank for 15 years, they had not been audited. We have to follow the money from production to export to return, where is the money going? We paid N11tn in subsidy and there is no accountability up till now. The National Assembly called the NNPCL to bring the documents, but they refused,” the former CBN governor said.
Also, last week, at the launch of NDU, the World Bank had called for more clarity on oil revenues, especially the financial gains of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) from the subsidy removal, the subsidy arrears still being deducted and the impact of this on the federation revenues.
Dr. Shubham Chaudhuri, the World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, who made the call, said the petrol subsidy and foreign exchange management reforms were critical steps in the right direction towards improving Nigeria’s economic outlook.
Chaudhari, noted that absolutely oil production in Nigeria had been declining, adding that it was a security issue among other things that needed to be addressed.
He explained that between N300 billion –N400 billion was expended on fuel subsidy monthly before the removal of subsidy in June, adding that the expectation was that the NNPCL should have been paying such amount to the Federation Account, regretting that this has not been the case.