What Is NNPC Hiding?

For how long will the outlaw Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) continue to mock Nigerians with its stubborn refusal to yield to legitimate entreaties to come clean on its activities to its numerous stakeholders? 

Not too long ago, the corporation earned the unflattering sobriquet from an international body – the Berne Declaration – as the most opaque national oil corporation on earth.

Since then, it has carried on with the same arrogant air of defiance, impervious to reason, as if it does not matter.

We recall too that the corporation has also turned the monthly meetings of the Federation Account Allocations Committee into a theatre of discord; more than twice, the meetings of the body could not hold amidst allegations of under-remittance by the corporation into the federation account, with a staggering amount involved said to be in excess of N150 billion. The governors body, the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) has in recent time, not only lampooned the corporation over the bizarre accounting that runs foul of commonsense, but also for its continuing intransigence over demands to lay bare the basis of its computation of revenue accruals into the federation account.

Now, another storm appears to be brewing over alleged discrepancies between the value of oil sales and actual remittances to the federation account. The House of Representatives has ordered a fresh inquiry into the operations of the corporation over the same set of issues. That was after a member, Haruna Manu, intimated the House of an alleged discrepancy of $13.9bn representing the difference between the $20.9bn said to have been realised from oil sales between January and August, as against the $7bn actually remitted into the federation account during the period. Now, the investigation, to be conducted by an ad hoc committee of the House is to determine the “volume and value of crude oil sales and remittances” by the corporation from January to date, and is expected to last four weeks.

Given its legendary tradition of obduracy, the natural question is whether the latest probe will amount to anything, or if indeed, it would reveal anything about the outlawry of the corporation that is not already revealed in one form or the other by either the Auditor-General of the Federation, AGF, the Public Accounts Committees, PAC, of the two chambers of the National Assembly, or even the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI.

Nonetheless, we consider the probe important for several reasons. The first is to insist on the obligation of the corporation to render the records of its operations to its stakeholders, in a satisfactory manner. Nigerians of course expect the reconciliation of the conflicting figures if only to lay the on-going controversies to rest. We want to know how many barrels of crude oil are sold daily and for how much. The time has come to end the corporation’s tradition of muddling things up.

We also expect the probe to shed light on why the corporation, aided by the petroleum ministry, has been so powerful to the extent that it can routinely defy oversight bodies like the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee and the office of the AGF.

We want to know: does the NNPC or its officials enjoy immunity from scrutiny from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission?

Nigerians eagerly expect the outcome of this latest round of probe. The surprise though will be when the probe finally meets their expectations.

The Nation