The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has again failed to remit into the federal government account.
To shore up the revenue base of the country, President Bola Tinubu has set up an inter-agency committee to resolve the lingering row between the NNPCL and FAAC.
This was disclosed, yesterday, by a Presidency source that said: “Mr President has approved the memo from NNPC to set up a committee to reconcile the crisis between NNPC and FAAC over the failure to remit money into the federation account.”
The Presidency source who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that vested interests had told the president things that were not entirely factual, prompting the national oil company to write that the matter be resolved once and for all.
“Because we want the public to know the truth, NNPC management wrote the President to investigate the matter and Mr President has graciously approved that an inter-agency committee be set up to investigate and reconcile the matter,” the industry source stated.
FAAC had on several occasion accused NNPC of short-changing it by refusing to pay over N2 trillion to the federation account from crude sales, royalties and taxes, while NNPC on the other hand had said that the Federal Government owed it over N4 trillion in subsidy payment, power debt and other sundry charges.
The committee, which is expected to begin sitting today, at the Ministry of Finance, is mandated to reconcile the controversies surrounding the N4.2 trillion debt the Federal Government is owing NNPC and the N2.1 trillion that NNPC is said to have failed to remit to FAAC.
Besides the Ministry of Finance and NNPC, other members of the debt reconciliation committee include the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) and FAAC Post-Mortem Sub-Committee.
The establishment of the committee by the President followed a memo dated June 13, 2023 by the Group Chief Executive Officer, NNPC, Mele Kyari, appealing to him to intervene in the matter.
