By Anayo Akwitti
The Federal Ministry of Finance has blamed the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and other agencies for its inability to fully account for billions of dollars and other financial transactions flagged in the 2021–2023 Oil and Gas Sector Audit Reports by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Raymond Omachi, made the disclosure on Thursday while appearing before the Senate Public Accounts Committee to respond to queries over the recovery of a $3 billion pre-export financing loan obtained in 2012 to settle subsidy payments, as well as $722.6 million in dividends and interest paid by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) to NNPC in 2021 on behalf of the Federation.
NEITI had raised concerns over the whereabouts and accounting of the funds, noting that the recovery of the $3 billion loan through monthly Federation revenue proceeds remained unclear. It also reported that the $722.6 million received from NLNG was neither remitted to the Federation nor properly accounted for.
The audit further queried the non-operation of Nigeria’s refineries in 2021 despite about N200 billion reportedly spent on them, while questioning $221.283 million in overhead costs incurred by the Nigerian National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS).
Omachi told the committee that the Ministry was not directly involved in all the transactions and had struggled to obtain the necessary records from affected agencies, particularly the NNPCL and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
He said the Ministry had engaged Arthur Andersen LLP to conduct a forensic audit of the transactions and reconcile the outstanding issues.
However, the committee, chaired by Senator Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, expressed concern over the delay in producing the forensic audit report, noting that the deadline had already been extended twice.
Omachi urged the committee to compel the NNPCL and NUPRC to appear alongside the Ministry, stressing that their records and explanations were crucial to resolving the outstanding queries.
Following the exchange, Dankwambo directed the Permanent Secretary to review the Ministry’s internal report and arrange a joint meeting involving the Ministry of Finance, NUPRC, NNPCL and other relevant agencies to address the financial discrepancies.
