The house of representatives has resolved to investigate the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for “illegal withdrawals” from
the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) account.
At Tuesday’s plenary session, the green chamber accused the
NNPC management of illegally withdrawing up to $1 billion from NLNG funds
without due process.
The resolution followed a motion from Ndudi Elumelu,
minority leader, who said the NNPC management tampered with the funds without
first getting approval from states and the national assembly.
Elumelu said the NLNG, which was incorporated as a limited
liability company in 1989, is jointly owned by the federal government —
represented by the NNPC with a shareholding of 49 per cent — and other
international oil companies.
He said the law provides that the NLNG dividends are to be
paid into the consolidated revenue funds account and shared among the three
tiers of government.
But the lawmaker said the NNPC had “without the required
consultations with states and the mandatory appropriation from the national
assembly, illegally tampered with the funds at the NLNG dividends account to
the tune of $1.05bn, thereby violating the nation’s appropriation law.”
“The house is disturbed that there was no transparency in
this extra-budgetary spending, as only the group managing director and the
corporation’s chief financial officer had the knowledge of how the $1.05bn was
spent,” he added.
“The house is concerned that there are no records showing
the audit and recovery of accrued funds from the NLNG by the office of the
auditor-general of the federation, hence the need for a thorough investigation
of the activities on the NLNG dividends account.”
Thereafter, the house mandated the committee on public
accounts to invite the managements of NNPC and NLNG “to conduct a thorough
investigation on activities that have taken place on the dividends account and
report back to the house in four weeks.”
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