Victor EzejaThe Nigerian Senate has given the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) a one-week ultimatum to explain in detail the over N210 trillion in discrepancies found in the company’s 2017–2023 audited financial statements.
The directive came after the Senate Committee on Public Accounts interrogated NNPCL officials on Wednesday regarding discrepancies in the amounts reported in the company’s financial reports under the headings of “accrued expenses” and “receivables.”
Join our WhatsApp Channel“We and NNPC and external auditors are here because of discrepancies that we have discovered from their audited financial statements, which is in the public domain already,” said Aliyu Wadada, chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts.
“The figure of the accrued expenses is N103 trillion, while the figure of the receivables is N107 trillion.
“So in total, figure-wise, you are talking N210 trillion,” Wadada added.
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The involvement of the external auditors, he said, underscored the seriousness of the situation.
According to him, the committee was trying to resolve discrepancies in the financial statements that had been audited.
Reacting to the claim by NNPCL that reconciliation had not been done, Wadada queried why they signed off on the audited financial statement.
He expressed concerns that the audited financial statement containing the discrepancies is already in the public domain. He noted that this is more worrisome as NNPCL is planning to go to the market for initial public offering (IPO), adding, however, that “it is not for us to go into conclusions now.”
Adedapo Segun, NNPC’s chief financial officer (CFO), responded to the committee, claiming that the disputed N107 trillion had to do with joint venture (JV) cash calls.
“The N107 trillion, essentially, are made up of JV cash calls that have been requested by the JV operators and JV cash call payments that have been made by NNPC, which were yet to be reconciled because the governance procedure was not done at the time,” Segun said.
“And that is why we see the description reflecting the fact that those two items would wash out because they are basically two sides of the same transaction, which is the cash calls from the JV partners and the settlements by NNPC.”
Wadada raised a couple of questions and asked the NNPCL to respond in a week time.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with seven years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Master's degree in Mass Communication.
