Senate demands audited accounts of NNPC, DPR, others

Senate Committee on Gas Resources has asked the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its subsidiaries to submit their detailed audited accounts in the past three years.

Subsidiaries expected to submit their audited accounts include the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), Nigerian Petroleum Investment and Management Service (NAPIMS), among others.

This is even as the Committee blamed the Federal Government agencies for the worsening gas flaring in the country, adding that their inability to enforce payment of stipulated penalties on erring international oil companies (OICs) was mainly responsible for increased gas flaring.

Chairman of the committee, Albert Akpan, who gave the directive, during the committee’s engagement with the agencies in Abuja on Wednesday, said the request was in line with the mandate of the committee in its ongoing investigation into the activities of the agencies.

Akpan, who picked hole in the activities of the agencies since their establishments, said the accounts must be submitted as soon as possible to enable his committee meet its deadline given by the Senate.

He said the audited documents would afford the committee opportunity to know the joint venture funding and cost determination of the oil companies and government agencies.

He also tasked the agencies to present the data of the quality of gas flared by the oil companies in the past two years, saying, “from here, we will know who approves projects and how are the projects monitored and the mechanism for cost recovery and monitoring of the projects.

“Give us the submission of the gas that you have flared and each of your operators involved. The quality of gas flared, the operators, the terminal and the related penalties paid.”

He frowned at the 2016 budget of the DPR, saying the N3 billion earmarked by the agency on penalties for gas flaring was grossly inadequate.

On their part, the group general manager, NAPIMS/NNPC, Dafe Sajebor, and the managing director of NPDC, Sadler Mai-Bornu, assured that the organisations were working assiduously to end gas flaring in the country between 2018 and 2020.