Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke, minister of petroleum
An international forensic audit says at least USD 1.48 billion is missing from Nigeria’s oil revenues far less than the USD 20 billion alleged by the former Central Bank governor.
The report by PricewaterhouseCoopers covering January 2012 to July 2013 is an indictment of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.
But NNPC said that the report cleared it of the allegations by Sanusi and that the $1.48 billion to remitted to Federation was not part of the alleged missing money.
President Goodluck Jonathan received what he called the “voluminous” report and promised to publish key findings. A copy of the findings was made available to The Associated Press today.
The auditors also questioned USD 3.38 billion in alleged subsidies for kerosene charged by the petroleum corporation although a presidential directive ended the subsidy in 2009. Jonathan fired Central Bank governor Lamido Sanusi a year ago after Sanusi created a scandal alleging USD 20 billion in oil revenues was missing.
The NNPC, in a swift reaction, said on Thursday that the forensic audit cleared it of the allegation that it failed to remit $20 billion owed to the state.
President Goodluck Jonathan ordered an audit of the national energy company in early 2014 after former central bank governor Lamido Sanusi said an estimated $20 billion in oil revenues had been withheld from the Federation Account.
NNPC added that the audit said $1.48 billion should be sent to the government by the corporation’s upstream subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) but that this amount was not part of the missing crude revenues.
It said the delay in the NPDC remittance was due to the reconciliation processes between the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the NNPC.
business standard/ reuters
