Reps probe crude production, revenue generated by NUPRC

The House of Representatives has launched an investigation into crude oil production from October 2021 to March 2022 with a view to determining the revenue accrued to the Federal Government by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).

The James Faleke-led House committee on finance held the investigative hearing on the ‘Revenue Monitoring Exercise’ at the National Assembly complex in Abuja on Tuesday.

Bello Aliyu, while responding to questions directed to the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, explained that from the N4 billion liabilities inherited from the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), it was scaled down to N1.7 billion taken over by the commission.

“The Nigeria Upstream Regulatory Commission is a new agency. It is the name that is new. The name was added to our purview December last year. So, we now wrote to them a letter sometimes in March to inform them of their responsibilities to Fiscal Responsibilities Act 2007 and then to inform them that, the obligations of DPR which was their former name is now transferred to them and that liability for DPR that they are responsible for is N1,739,837,045. This we informed them sometimes in March. I think March 29,” he said.

Babajide Fashina, speaking on behalf of NUPRC said details of revenue sources were based on oil royalty, gas royalty, gas sales royalty, gas flaring penalty, concession rental, miscellaneous oil revenue and signature bonus and all these were paid into the generation account as the commission does not maintain any account of its own.

He said: “On the second one, which is the schedule of revenue collected, from October 2021 till February date, we have a total collection of N695,617,119.49. That was from October 2021 to February 2022.

“And the breakdown as shown, the oil royalty which was the large one, we have N616 billion, the gas royalty, N19 billion, had flare N39 billion, concession rental, N3.5 billion then miscellaneous oil revenue, N6.69 and all these have been paid into the federation account. From January to December 2021, we were able to generate about 2.7 trillion for the federation.”

He argued that the differential observed by the committee would be resolved during the reconciliation with the Fiscal Responsibility Commission.

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Responding, Faleke directed NUPRC to submit proper reports on the volume of crude oil produced and details on the projected revenue.

He said: “Royalty, N88.7 billion, I am reading from your figure. From what volume of crude? We need to know. You need to create a column to tell us the volume of crude for that particular period you are referring to because we have to monitor this in line with our production.

“So, all the revenue items you need to create that column for us to know what you are talking about. This is just bandying figures before us without foundation.

“So, we will give you another day to do two things. Give us this proper report that we are asking for. Two, do a final reconciliation with Fiscal Responsibility and get back to us next week.”

Meanwhile, the House ad-hoc committee on Unclaimed Funds in commercial banks and the Infractions of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) disclosed that the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) owes the Federal Government N3.8 billion.

Unyime Idem, chairman of the committee at the investigative hearing said the sum represented the amount that was not remitted to the government by the agency from 2016 to 2018.

Idem said the agency submitted audited financial statements only for the period and the debt figure was arrived at by the committee from the documents it received.

“These figures are extracted from documents that they submitted before us. I wonder what would happen by the time they fully submit all the documents required by this committee,” Idem said.

Idem also disclosed that the National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NATEB) is yet to remit the sum of N268 million to the Federal Government.