Nnpc Withholds $21.7bn, N316bn From Federation Account – Neiti

SAN FRANCISCO, April 04, (THEWILL) – The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, has accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and its upstream arm, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, of failing to remit $21.778 billion and N316.074 billion respectively to the Federation Account.

In a policy brief issued on Tuesday, NEITI explained that the $21.778 billion and N316.074 billion unremitted amounts were discovered after it carried out a series of audits on the oil and gas sector.

It said the unremitted amounts were due from three main sources: federation assets divested to NPDC and NPDC's legacy liabilities; payments for domestic crude allocation to NNPC; and dividends from investment in Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company, NLNG, paid to but withheld by NNPC.

While advising the Federal Government to immediately recover the over $20 billion withheld by NNPC and NPDC and use it to fund the recovery of the economy, the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Waziri Adio said “even in the best of times, $21bn plus N316bn is not small money”.

Adio, who stated this at the launch of the report in Abuja, maintained that “the country is in a dark place. We need to recover all the money we can get”.