Sanusi Attacks NNPC Again: You haven’t accounted for $20bn

Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, yesterday, told the Senate Committee on Finance that of the $67 billion crude oil sales that was supposed to be remitted to the Federation Account, only $47 billion had been reconciled between the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC and CBN.

But the Committee’s Chairman, Ahmed Makarfi, cautioned the CBN Governor over making wild and unsubstantiated allegations without concrete and specific figures to back them up.

The NNPC, in a swift reaction, however, dismissed the allegation of another unremitted $20

billion oil revenue raised against it by the CBN.

It is uncertain how Sanusi came up with the fresh $20 billion unremitted funds against the initial $10.8 billion. The latter figure was arrived at during the account reconciliation with the Ministry of Finance, NNPC and CBN during a public hearing on alleged unremitted $49.8 billion oil revenue organised by the Senate.

CBN’s arguments

But the CBN Governor, while making the new allegation, stated: “All we have said as CBN to which there is no disagreement is that NNPC shipped $67bn worth of crude. They have repatriated or we have established that $47bn has come back to the Federation Account. There is a $20billion that has not come back to us. The burden of proof is on NNPC.

“We have made suggestions that can help to answer some of the questions and we believe that even some of that which they (NNPC) claimed were shipped by NPDC do not belong to the NPDC but to the Federation.”

He said some of the issues were subject to investigation which, according to him, had to do with whether NNPC was repatriating money due to the Federation Account or not, adding that it was necessary to investigate the issue because the NNPC had given a number of explanations on why the money had not been remitted.

Sanusi said: “May I say, Mr. Chairman, that some of those issues raised are subject to investigations. They have to do with whether NNPC is repatriating money due to the federation account or not and because NNPC had given a number of explanations for why money has not come.

“If NNPC, for instance, says we have sold $6billion worth of crude belonging to NPDC, and if the CBN believes that part of that money should come to the Federation Account, it is related to this matter and it had been captured in our presentation.

“We are here because they are related to the question of whether NNPC is returning to the Federation Account, all the amount it is constitutionally and legally required to return.

“I have a 20-page presentation with 30 appendages, but we have to first of all agree on what has been paid into the CBN. NNPC did a presentation. We have all agreed earlier that $14billion out of the $67billion they shipped came in to the dollar account of the federation.

“That is agreed. We have looked at Federal Inland Revenue Service,FIRS, numbers and we have confirmed that $16billion paid by international oil companies to the FIRS account was not paid by the NNPC but paid by IOCs.

“It was the proceeds of crude lifted in the name of NNPC but sold on behalf of FIRS. That $16billion had been confirmed by FIRS and had been accepted. There is $1.6bn that DPR also received from IOCs which was part of that crude and which CBN had accepted.

“We have provided evidence in the naira crude account out of the $28billion domestic crude shipped by the NNPC, it had repatriated $16billion.

“Out of the $67billion that has accrued to the NNPC account we have accounted for $47billion. Out of the $67billion that the NNPC shipped, $47billion had been repatriated to the CBN. What we are talking about is the balance of the $20billion and what explanations had been given.