Transparency International Nigeria has blamed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his predecessors, Muhammadu Buhari and Olusegun Obasanjo for the years of unaccounted remittances and fraud in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.
TI Nigeria country director, Auwal Rafsanjani made this known in an exclusive interview with DAILY POST on Monday.
This comes as the World Bank Nigeria Development Update report released last week indicted the state-owned company over failure to remit crude revenue amounting to N500 billion to the Federation account for October 2024 and December 2024.
A detail of the revelation in the World Bank’s NDU report showed that out of the N1.1 trillion revenue from crude sales and other income in 2024, the NNPCL only remitted N600 billion, leaving a deficit of N500 billion.
The unaccounted N500 billion has stirred fresh controversies over lack of transparency and corruption in the country’s oil behemoth, NNPCL.
Similarly, the International Monetary Fund had also called for a more transparent transfer of fuel subsidy gains by the NNPCL in its recent report.
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, on Sunday raised the bar on calls for a thorough probe of the unremitted N500 billion fund by the NNPCL.
DAILY POST reports that the financial opaqueness of NNPCL has continued unhindered despite the president being the substantive minister of petroleum. Since 1999, of the five Nigerian presidents, three were substantive petroleum ministers, including Obasanjo, Buhari, and most recently Tinubu.
Reacting, Rafsanjani blamed the rot in NNPCL on Nigeria’s presidents and the National Assembly.
According to him, the probe of NNPCL finances needs to go beyond its former Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari.
He explained that the financial transactions of the state-owned oil firm should be comprehensively audited to unravel all the missing money lost since 1999.
Rafsanjani also blamed the National Assembly for the lack of an adequate oversight function on a critical government agency such as the NNPCL.
He kicked against Nigerian presidents appointing themselves as petroleum ministers.
“The need to carry out a comprehensive audit of NNPCL is necessary to ascertain the level of financial transactions under Mele Kyari and other leadership of NNPCL.
“If we want to have a comprehensive audit to know all the missing money lost from 1999 to date, it is only a thorough audit that will ascertain this. It is not only Mele Kyari, but it has to be comprehensive.
“All these happened under the president, who is the substantive petroleum minister. The president is responsible. Whether Buhari, Tinubu, or Obasanjo. That is why we have advocated for a substantive minister of petroleum.
“They must stop appointing themselves as ministers of petroleum. This showed that the National Assembly is not carrying out its oversight function. So it is a shame. The indictment should be to the president and the National Assembly for the mess in NNPCL.
“The subsidy is not the problem, but the corruption in the process is. The missing money must be recovered and used for the good of all Nigerians,” he told DAILY POST.
NNPCL probe long overdue — Energy expert, Madaki
An energy expert, managing partner of BBH Consulting, and convener of the Public Interest Advocacy Network (PIAN), Barr. Ameh Madaki said that a comprehensive audit of NNPCL is long overdue.
According to him, the company had continued to exist in opaqueness for too long without adequate scrutiny.
“The probe required in NNPCL under Mele Kyari goes far beyond the N500 billion referred to in the World Bank report under reference.
“The opaque nature of the operations of the NNPCL over the years and the selective amnesia of the Nigerian public ensure that massive fraud is covered up by the organisation.
“For instance, what happened to the $3.3 billion borrowed by NNPCL to shore up the value of the naira on crude oil futures sales contracts?
“What was done with the money when the currency went into a disgraceful free fall? And this is not the first time NNPCL is not remitting funds to the federation account!
“Throughout the second term of President Buhari, NNPCL did not remit a dime to the Federation account because they said they had become a limited liability company like NLNG and would only remit profits after expenses and tax to the Federation account after the audit.
“This kept the states and local governments in dire straits financially under that government, and nothing happened.
“So why would anyone cry wolf over one month’s remittance to the Federation account? NNPCL has declared losses for several years under one frivolous guise or the other, but nobody has asked for a probe.
“Bayo Ojulari, the new GCEO of NNPCL, as a square peg in a square hole, must do the needful and purge the organisation of its opaqueness so that Nigerians can, for the first time, reap the benefits of having a National Oil and Gas Company,” he told DAILY POST.
Call for Kyari’s probe
DAILY POST reports that the missing N500 billion in unremitted funds had heightened calls for Kyari’s probe.
Recall that Tinubu’s administration on April 2 sacked Kyari and other NNPCL board members over mounting concerns about their performance.
Kyari announced the commencement of petroleum products production at Port Harcourt and Warri refineries last year, in November and December, respectively.
However, the petrol production capacity of the resuscitated refineries remained under contention before the exit of Kyari.
The development had fueled mixed reactions over calls for his probe by several groups and civil societies in the last two months.
