FAAC sets up committee to ensure NNPC remits $1.48b

The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) has constituted a committee to  ensure that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) pays the $1.48bn u remitted accruals to the Federation Account into the account as directed by PriceWaterHouse Coopers in its forensic audit of the corporation.

 Chairman,  Forum of Finance Commissioners of FAAC, Mr Timothy Odaah, who spoke on Monday after the monthly meeting of the committee, said the committee was constituted  to find out the reasons for the delay in making the funds available to the three tiers of government.

Odaah spoke in Abuja during an interview with journalists after this month's allocation committee meeting.

According to him, the committee is  worried about the delay in releasing the fund. He said while the President had given directive for the fund to be made available, the corporation had yet to release the fund with about a month to the end of the current administration.

He said that as a result of the persistent drop in allocations to the three tiers of government the money was needed by the states so that they could meet up with their obligations since majority of them had yet to pay salaries and contractors.

He said, “We are making a clarion call that the directive on the $1.48bn, coming from the audit of NNPC, should be made available so that we can clear that. The coming (April) FAAC is the last FAAC and we believe it should come during that period because if it doesn't come in by then, it is belated and we don't want it to escape that period.

“Today, there was a committee constituted for the purpose of ensuring that we meet with the NNPC so that every thing would be ironed out because we know that Mr President had already given the directive and we also know that the minister had directed that it should be paid but we don't know exactly what is happening.

“We need that money, the Federal Government needs it, the states and local governments also need it and if it is not released with this type of abysmal funding we have, it will be very terrible.

PriceWaterHouseCoopers was hired to carry out the forensic audit following an allegation by the then Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, that $20bn was not remitted to the Federation Account by the NNPC.

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