The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, on Monday evening revealed that a whopping sum of $3.28 billion, representing 43,645,678 barrels of crude oil lifted by Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has been diverted and looted.
The figures were established by a designated FAAC sub-committee saddled with the task of carrying out exhaustive computation of crude oil lifted by the NPDC.
FAAC had directed the NNPC at its last session in Abuja to “deposit the money into escrow account pending the conclusion of divestment process.”
According to FAAC subcommittee report on crude oil lifting by NPDC, members would recall that the sub-committee reported last month that NPDC, a subsidiary of NNPC, lifted substantial amount of equity crude oil whose value had not been credited to the federation account.
As a follow-up, the subcommittee took time to compute crude oil lifting by NPDC from the year 2013 to April 2016 and it was observed that the company lifted 43,645,678 barrels, valued at $3.28 billion.
Though it was learnt that the NNPC management responded to previous memo from FAAC on same matter, which insider source said has been dragging, with an assurance that it would request NPDC to furnish FAAC with details of its operations, the body had yet to receive response of NNPC subsidiary.
Recall, that three months ago, there was a seeming disagreement between state-owned oil firm and FAAC over the funds realized from divested oil wells taken over by NPDC.
FAAC had demanded the state corporation to provide evidence of payments into the federation account by NPDC from crude oil, lifted from divested oil wells on behalf of the federation from inception of divestment in 2013 to April this year.
FAAC had demanded the state corporation to provide evidence of payments into the federation account by NPDC from crude oil, lifted from divested oil wells on behalf of the federation from inception of divestment in 2013 to April this year.
Prior to FAAC’s directive, the organ had raised the alarm that both quantities of crude oil and real monetary value that accrued from inherited oil wells were not transparently handled by NPDC on behalf of the body.
As at June this year, NNPC was said to have lifted 6,396,572 barrels of crude oil valued at N37.96 billion on behalf of NPDC between January and February 2016 from inherited oil wells.
FAAC had expressed doubt that despite the drop in the federation’s crude oil volume, NPDC continued to lift substantial quantity of crude with little or no value to the federation account.
The NNPC, in its response to FAAC’s observations, noted: “NPDC is a 100 percent NNPC-owned upstream company that operates under the sole risk commercial arrangement. Under this fiscal regime, NPDC as the flagship upstream company of NNPC is not expected to sweep all its revenues to the federation account.”
FAAC is the custodian of federation account and meets every month to consider revenue flow to the account and approved for sharing using existing formula to Federal, States, and Local governments, while 13 percent is paid out to oil producing States.
An analysis of the reconciliation sheet revealed that the $573,668,090 was just a fraction of the cash calls, as some huge returns that were yet to be subjected to technical and financials by the two parties were not included.
Eze Afrika
