Fakoyejo OlalekanThe Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has been accused by the House of Representatives member, Sergius Ose-Ogun, of using the subsidy regime to divert about $10 billion.
$10 billion, going by the official exchange rate as of June 30, 2022, would equal Four trillion, one hundred and fifty-one billion naira (N4, 151,000,000,000)
Ose-Ogun stated that the NNPC has been inflating cost of fuel subsidy by providing wrong daily consumption figure of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), adding an extra 20 million to 60 million to the number.
The lawmaker disclosed this on the floor of the House on Wednesday, resulting to an agreement that the House should investigate the subsidy regime under President Muhammadu Buhari between 2017 to 2021.
Ose-Ogun said he’s aware that the “component costs in the petroleum products subsidy value chain claimed by the NNPC Limited are highly over-bloated while the transfer pump price per litre used by the NNPC Limited in relation to PPMC is underquoted as N123-N128 instead of N162-N165 and this fraudulent under-reporting of N37-N39 per litre translates into over N70 billion a month or N840 billion a year;
“Worried that the consumption rate of Petroleum Motor Spirit(PMS) is 40 million to 45 million litres per day, however, the NNPC Ltd uses 65 million to 100 million litres per day to determine subsidy as discoverable from NNPC’s monthly reports to the Federal Allocation Committee (FAAC);
“Also worried that the subsidy regime has been unscrupulously used by the NNPC Ltd & other critical stakeholders to subvert the nation’s crude oil revenue to the tune of over $10B,with records showing that as at 2021, over $7B in over 120m barrels have been so diverted;
“Disturbed that there exists evidence that subsidy amounts are being duplicated, thus subsidy is charged against petroleum products sales in the books of NNPC as well as against crude oil revenue in the books of NAPIMS to the tune of over N2 trillion.” The lawmaker said during plenary on Wednesday.
After eight weeks of investigating, the lawmakers are expected to reconvene on the matter.
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