Sanusi Drops Another Bombshell; Says NNPC Yet To Remit $20bn To CBN …He Is Ignorant – NNPC

As the letter from the Governor of the Central Bank (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to the presidency over alleged unremitted monies into the federation account from crude oil sales by Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) from January 2012 to July 2013 continues to raise more dust and draw more search lights the end still seems far off as Sanusi yesterday said the unremitted amount is not just $10.8 billion as earlier believed in December last year but is now $20billion.
Sanusi at a meeting between stakeholders, organised by the Senate committee on Finance to gather views of all parties involved in the transaction with a view to arriving at the true picture again declared that the yet to be reconciled amount out of the unremitted monies into the federation account from crude oil sales was not $10.8billion but $20billion, on the note that out of the $ 67bn that accrued to NNPC within the said period, only $47bn dollars was accounted for, by NNPC.
While the Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Ahmed Markafi  cautioned on further allegation until reconciled accounts of all the relevant agencies are submitted to his committee presently carrying out investigation on the first figure ($49.8billion) allegedly unremitted into the federation account from crude oil sales ,the NNPC GMD accused Sanusi of talking in ignorance.
Though  in December last year in the wake of the first allegation raised by Sanusi that NNPC failed to remit $49.8billion part of the crude oil sales into the federation account between January 2012 and July 2013 , the Senate Committee on Finance summoned the management of CBN, NNPC, PPPRA, the Budget Office , the Minister of Petroleum and that of Finance to make submissions on the allegation where they all submitted that they have reconciled their accounts and discovered that only $10.8billion was yet to be reconciled, the CBN Governor had at the  second  sitting of the committee yesterday come up with this new figure
His words  at the presentation “We have provided evidence in the naira crude account out of the $28bn domestic crude shipped by the NNPC, it had repatriated $16bn. Out of the $67bn that has accrued to the NNPC account we have accounted for $47bn.
“Out of the $67bn that the NNPC shipped, $47bn had been repatriated to the CBN. What we are talking about is the balance of the $20bn and what explanations had been given?”, he asked, However,  the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Andrew Yakubu faulted Sanusi over the submission , insisting that NNPC had done the necessary reconciliation of accounts with relevant agencies and all, except CBN, agreeing that the yet amount to be reconciled is the $10.8billion that Sanusi himself agreed to in December last year.
His words : “CBN is a banking outfit, so I really, really understand why they will not understand some petroleum engineering issues and they are not also an auditing outfit. Now what they try to do is to audit and I heard some statements made here that they do not have this document, they don’t have that document. They are not the auditors.
“We have certified bodies and arms of agencies that are charged with the responsibility of auditing. They are banking right? So what he said was not really new. We said clearly that we stated an amount that went to NPDC and that amount was the gross lifting. But there are other streams that go back to government in terms of taxes just like any other business player. So we have Royalties, we have Petroleum Profit Tax and so on and so forth”
NNPC insisted that even the $10.8 billion declared unremitted into the federation account last year December were expended on Petroleum and Kerosene as recently explained by NNPC to the Nigerian public and as will soon be submitted before this committee after final reconciliation of account with PPPRA.
“As you are aware the major chunk of the amount in question over 80 per cent of it is in the subsidy for both PMS and Kerosene.
“We said we are at the point of concluding the reconciliation. We have been reconciling with PPPRA, on the subsidy documentation on PMS and Kerosene. You were told the PPPRA testified to that. We are at the point of rounding up and that is the major chunk of the entire amount in question. As soon as that is done we will reconcile, sign-off and then make formal presentation to the committee”.

Nneka Amaechi-Nnadi, Abuja

Chairman, House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), Hon Dakuku Peterside (middle) and Dep Chairman, Hon Yusuf Shittu Galambi (right) listening to a presentation by the Executive Secretary Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF), Mrs Adefunke Sharon, during an oversiste visit to PEF, recently