Office of Nigeria’s Auditor General has accused the state oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited of exporting 17.877 million barrels of crude oil in four years without proper documentation.
But the oil firm, through its spokesman, Garba Deen Muhammed, said in a counter statement yesterday, said the Auditor General of the Federation [AuGF] of Nigeria lied.
In a report published on its last Tuesday night, the AuGF revealed that the product valued at $1,020,969,281.12 was exported by NNPC between 2016 and 2020. The AuGF also faulted the NNPC for appointing two Pre-Shipment Agents (PIAs) and one Monitoring and Evaluation Agent (MEA) in 2017 knowing fully well that President Muhammadu Buhari had canceled the appointments of all service providers two years earlier. The Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation was also indicted for making payments of N73 billion to PIAs and MEAs for inspection and monitoring of oil and gas exports.
AuGF noted that the payments were without budgetary provision and violated Section 80(4) of the 1999 Constitution.
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But in a swift response yesterday, the NNPC spokesman, Mr. Mohammed did mention 32 oil marketing companies involved in the non-completion of the NXP forms
He said there was no wrong doing anywhere. “It does not in any way mean that the proceeds from the sale of the said crude were not repatriated into the coffers of NNPC Limited and consequently into the Federation Accounts for Federation related barrels.”
He said the auditor general lied in his assertion about the appointment of inspection agents.
“It should also be noted that NNPC Limited does not appoint Inspection Agents as alleged, but rather, it is the sole responsibility of the Federal Ministry of Finance.
Mohammed called on the general public to jettison the report from the office of the Auditor General of the Federation and disregard the content of the report.
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