The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) says the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its upstream arm, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), have failed to remit $21.778 billion and N316.074 billion respectively to the Federation Account.
NEITI in a policy brief released on Tuesday explained that it came up with the $21.778 billion and N316.074 billion unremitted amounts after a series of audits of the oil and gas sector it carried out.
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.
“Even in the best of times, $21bn + N316bn is not small money,” Executive Secretary of NEITI Waziri Adio, said at the launch of the report in Abuja adding that “the country is in a dark place. We need to recover all the money we can get.”
NEITI called on the Federal Governmentto immediately recover the over $20 billion withheld by NNPC and NPDC and useit to fund the recovery of the economy.
