FAAC: Finance commissioners accuse NNPC of deceit, falsehood

After refusing to share the revenue made available to the Federal
Accounts Allocations Committee, FAAC, by the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, as statutory allocation for the three
tiers of government for June, Commissioners of Finance and
Accountants-General of the 36 states have accused the nation's oil
company of falsehood and deceit.


The NNPC had claimed that governors of the 36 states of the federation
were making requests on it to transfer an extra N40 billion for them
to share in the FAAC despite its remittance of N147 billion to the
FAAC in June for sharing by the three tiers of government.

It stressed that the extra request by the governors was against the
terms of the agreement it had with them on the matter.


But speaking on Saturday, the Commissioners of Finance Forum in FAAC
disputed the figure the NNPC said it remitted for sharing, insisting
that the oil firm transferred only N127 billion, being the equivalent
amount remitted in May, leaving a shortfall of N20 billion.

Speaking with reporters in Abuja, Chairman of the Forum, Mamood
Yunusa, stated that since Wednesday, Finance minister, Mrs Kemi
Adeosun has been meeting with members of the Forum, along with Federal
Ministry of Finance officials, Office of the Accountant General of the
Federation, Central Bank of Nigeria and the NNPC top management over
the issue.

Yunusa who provided more details on Sunday, said based on all provable
assumption and parameters, the NNPC should have "remitted N60 billion
as royalty based on the verbal admission of Department of Petroleum
Resources (DPR)".


Similarly, based on the MTEF (Medium Term Expenditure Framework)
submitted by NNPC, the expected Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) should have
been 1.46 multiplied by N60 billion, "amounting to N87.6 billion".

He said the total figure would come to about N147.6 billion, which is
what was expected to be remitted to the federation account, against
N127 billion "the NNPC actually paid".

Apart from the figure, the Forum chair said the NNPC also claimed it
spent about N3.5 billion to take care of product pipeline
leakages/vandalism.