The recent dissolution of the board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) with immediate effect by President Muhammadu Buhari was to pave way for a forensic investigation of the activities of the corporation. A Presidency source said the urgency with which the President dissolved the board was based on the recommendation of the Transition Committee which advised the President to act fast to save the corporation from further slide into the cesspit of fraud.
A clean out of the behemoth corporation was part of the recommendations of the audit report PriceWaterHouseCoopers, the international audit firm recruited by the last administration to vet the books of the corporation.
The directive for the dissolution was conveyed in a letter signed on 26th June 2015 by the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Barr.Danladi Kifasi.
Mr. Buhari is said to favour a forensic investigation of the corporation which had been under fire for perceived unimaginable corruption. “The President is angry at the turn of events in the corporation which was a lot cleaner in his days as Minister of Petroleum and Head of State. Nigerians should expect more positive action from the President in the coming weeks when he is expected to set up a team of trustworthy Nigerians to scrutinise the books of the corporation”, a Presidency source told our correspondent.
A forensic audit of NNPC released early this year said the company, accused of corruption, actually overpaid the state by almost $750 million, but should still pay it an additional $1.5 billion.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan released the audit days after his elected replacement, Muhammadu Buhari, pledged to issue the report and crack down on corruption in the energy company once in office.
The probe of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) books was instituted last year after former central bank governor Lamido Sanusi said the firm had withheld $20 billion in oil revenue from government coffers, jeopardising the country’s finances.
Details in the PriceWaterhouseCoopers audit said NNPC actually overpaid by $0.74 billion in the period between January 2012 to July 2013, after remitting $50.81 billion to federation accounts of the $69.34 billion it had received.
The balance of $18.53 billion was accounted for through various operational costs, unremitted revenues by a subsidiary and gasoline and kerosene subsidies, it said. Sanusi had told a Senate committee in 2014 that NNPC had received $67 billion and handed over only $47 billion.
After the allegations, Jonathan publicly dismissed the claim and replaced Sanusi, saying the banker had mismanaged the central bank’s budget. Sanusi has since become Emir of Kano, the country’s second-highest Islamic authority.
The PwC audit, however, said NNPC and its upstream subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, should hand over $1.48 billion arising from unsubstantiated costs, duplicated subsidy claims and computation errors.
The report also recommended an overhaul of how NNPC is run.
“The NNPC model of operation must be urgently reviewed and restructured, as the current model which has been in operation since the creation of the corporation cannot be sustained,” it said in the 200-page document.
An earlier one-page version of the report, which had been due out in September last year, was released in February this. The affair has caused consternation in a nation long accustomed to reports of grand graft in Africa’s largest oil producer.
Analysts say Buhari, 72, managed to oust Jonathan in elections last month because voters believed he would tackle graft in Africa’s largest economy.
