Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has offered to explain the 4.1 billion dollars of oil revenues it was accused of retaining by an international watchdog, Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) last week.
According to a statement posted on NRGI’s website, the NNPC offered to hold talks with the international watchdog to explain the retained oil revenue.
The statement read, “NNPC has invited NRGI to meetings where it will clarify its position. NRGI appreciates NNPC’s open doors and willingness to engage, and will post further updates based on these discussions.”
President Muhammadu Buhari last year fired senior staff of the state owned oil company, NNPC and approved a revamp of its structure last month.
NRGI had alleged in published report last week that NNPC withheld around two third of the $6.3 billion ($4.1 billion) of oil proceeds in the second half of 2015.
The international watchdog said, that was an increase of 12 percent from the proportion kept under the administration led by Buhari’s predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, in 2013 and 2014.
NNPC had previously responded that such accusations failed to account for its costs.
The constitution required NNPC to remit oil revenue to a central purse and money would then be paid back based on a budget approved by National Assmebly, but the act establishing the company allows it to cover costs before remitting funds to the government.
Nigeria’s auditor-general and the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission both said NNPC failed to remit billions of dollars to the public purse during the Jonathan era.
The NRGI report said that, until there are agreed rules on how much money NNPC could keep and how it must spend the money, it would continue to “leak” out of the system.
“NNPC spending on this scale raises questions about fiscal responsibility, especially at a time when public finances are stretched and the federal government is looking to fund more of its budget with debt,” the report said.
The watchdog praised Buhari’s work to reform oil sales, notably efforts to cut out “passive, well-connected middlemen”, and reforms of crude for oil product swap deals that have been replaced with revised agreements directly with oil refineries.
