The Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) has described the report of the Nigerian Extractive
Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), which accused it of owing
the federation N1.3 trillion as misleading.
In a statement, it explained that the
N928billion ‘debt’, has been paid since the first quarter of last year.
This can be verified with the relevant authorities, the corporation
said.
The Manager, Group Public Affairs, Umar
Mohammed, said: “The report contains fundamental inaccuracies, which are
misleading and constitutes misinformation to the public.
“One would have expected NEITI to take cognisance of this process in the report to avoidmisrepresenting NNPC’s debt profile.
“The N377 billion purported debt was a
carry-over of 2004-2005 when NNPC was directed to buy crude oil for
domestic consumption at the international market price, while the sale
of petroleum products was at subsidised prices without appropriate
instrument to recover the shortfall.”
On subsidy, Mohammed explained that
NNPC’s subsidy claims were verified and approved for payment by the
relevant agencies, adding that the claims due to NNPC were not “cash
payments as amounts duly approved are backed out from the Gross Domestic
Oil revenue due to the Federation Account in any given month”. This is
the extant process for this transaction, he added.
On the N1.4 trillion, he said: “The
report deliberately ignored, and or omitted the factors responsible for
the increasing amounts paid, especially the price of crude oil which
accounts for 82 per cent of the price build-up for petroleum products.
“It should be noted that as a fall out
of the subsidy crisis of 2012, other players that constitute over 50 per
cent of the market share in the downstream, refused to import petroleum
products from their supply obligation. NNPC being the supplier of last
resort under the NNPC Act, continued to supply the nation at huge cost
while still maintaining the strategic reserve obligation”. He added that
NNPC should be commended on the matter.
The corporation said its response to the NEITI 2009-2011 became imperative to clear its name.
“From the foregoing, NEITI without
taking cognizance of the extant laws and regulations, guidelines and
terms of relevant contracts in NNPC’s operations, has continued to
portray the corporation to the public in bad light. The report contains
fundamental inaccuracies, which are misleading and constitutes
misinformation to the generality of the public, the statement, he said.
The corporation said it is awaiting a formal engagement with NEITI to close the report.
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