4 November 2011, Sweetcrude, Abuja - Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani
Alison-Madueke, has said the budget of the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)
was too big for the Nigerian government. She disclosed this during her appearance before
the House of Representatives committee probing
NNPC’s non-remittance of N450 billion to the
federation account. “NNPC is not subjected to the Consolidated Fund of
the Federal Government. It cannot depend on
federal budget because it runs very capital
intensive operations beyond what government
can finance,” she said, adding: “The NNPC budget
is not an appropriated budget.We function largely like a private commercial enterprise.” Alison-Madueke was responding to a question on
whether the NNPC was bigger than the federal
government since it did not bring its annual
budgets to the legislature for approval. She said that the NNPC was like an independent
entity that should have been run on purely
commercial basis. The minister insisted that the NNPC was not owing
the Federal Government but that what was being
regarded as debts were deductions meant to cater
for the shortfall between the cost NNPC bought
domestic crude and the “low pump price” fixed by
government. Describing the report presented to the committee
by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative which put NNPC’s indebtedness to the
government at N842 billion as “outdated,” she
said the report did not capture the credit period of
N389.5bn. “There is a misrepresentation by NEITI. If this
(N389.5bn) is deducted from N842.7bn, of course,
you will get N450.7bn, which is why we are here”,
she explained. According to her, the NNPC has its own audit
report updated up to 2010, while the NEITI report
covered 2004 to 2008. “I am sure that by the time they update their own
report, some of these issues will take their proper
shape. For now, they are giving historical
information”, she said. Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed,
had told the House panel on Wednesday that the
NNPC total indebtedness to the Federal Account
was in fact N842bn, as against the N450bn for
which the corporation was being probed. Ahmed also accused the NNPC of having “several
discrepancies and flaws” in its transactions. On deductions by NNPC, the Accountant-General of
the Federation, Mr. Joseph Otunla, made a
submission which tallied with that of the minister
and the NNPC on the figure of the debt. He noted, “The NNPC withheld a total sum of
N450bn from proceeds generated by it from
February 2005 to November 2008. “The amount deducted is not in dispute as the
NNPC agreed with the figures and they have
begun the repayment of N7.7bn per month,
effective from September, 2011.” Meanwhile, the NEITI testimony almost marred the
committee’s sitting on Thursday as members were
sharply divided in their reactions to the
information provided by the organisation. At a point, some members of the committee staged
a walkout following heated arguments with a co-
chairman of the joint committee being accused of
canvassing for the NNPC. Trouble started when one of the co-chairmen, Mr.
Ajibola Muraina, kicked against NEITI. He said that
it was wrong for NEITI to classify the deductions
on subsidy as unauthorised when there was a
government policy on subsidy. Muraina also said that NEITI did its audit on the
NNPC every three years, while the corporation did
its own every year, an indication that the former
might be behind time. “NEITI is taking technicalities to the extreme”, he
said. But, many committee members took exceptions to
his questions, accusing him of taking sides with
the NNPC.
www.sweetcrudereports.com/2011/11/04/nnpc-budget-too-big-for-government-–-alison-madueke/

of course, this explain why our block is dashed out to business men and politicians to serve their interest. It is no longer the people's resources manager but an independent commercial entity

Her father yansh