The Socioeconomic Rights and Accountability Venture (SERAP) has threatened to take authorized motion towards Nigerian Nationwide Petroleum Co. Ltd. (NNPC) over purportedly lacking oil revenues.
In a letter to NNPC chief government Mele Kolo Kyari the non-governmental accountability watchdog cited a 2020 report by the West African nation’s auditor-general about $2 billion and NGN164 billion ($102.4 billion) that the nationwide oil and gasoline firm apparently did not remit to the state.
The letter requested, as quoted in a SERAP press assertion, the NNPC boss “to call and disgrace these chargeable for the disappeared oil cash, surcharge them for the complete quantity concerned, and hand them over to applicable anticorruption companies, as supplied for below paragraph 3112(ii) of the Monetary Laws 2009, and advisable by the Auditor-Basic”.
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SERAP additionally demanded the lacking quantities remitted to state coffers with out additional delay.
“The lacking oil revenues have additional broken the already precarious financial system within the nation and contributed to very excessive ranges of deficit spending by the federal government”, learn the letter, as quoted within the SERAP assertion.
“The alleged lacking oil revenues replicate a failure of NNPCL accountability extra usually and are straight linked to the establishment’s persevering with failure to uphold the rules of transparency and accountability”, the letter added.
“We’d be grateful if the advisable measures are taken inside 7 days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter. If we’ve got not heard from you by then, SERAP shall contemplate applicable authorized actions to compel the NNPCL to adjust to our requests within the public curiosity”.
NNPC has not replied to a Rigzone request for remark.
Earlier this 12 months NNPC reported NGN 2.5 trillion ($1.6 billion) in revenue for the 16-month interval to December 2022. NNPC collected NGN 8.8 trillion ($5.5 billion) in income for the interval, whereas it owed NGN 344 billion ($214.3 million) in revenue tax.
SERAP stated within the letter, “Had the NNPCL and its subsidiaries accounted for and remitted the disappeared public funds into the Federation Account, it’s seemingly that extra funds would have been allotted to the achievement of financial and social rights, equivalent to elevated spending on public items and providers”.
“The lacking oil revenues have additionally impeded Nigerians’ means to take pleasure in their financial and social rights, and denied them entry to important public items and providers, particularly on the time of value of dwelling disaster within the nation”.
To contact the writer, e-mail jov.onsat@rigzone.com
