SEVERAL reactions have trailed the report of the
PricewaterhouseCoopers forensic audit of the
Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC,
which resulted from the allegation of unremitted
$49.8bn that former Governor of Central Bank of
Nigeria, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi made.
Mallam Sanusi at various points reviewed the
figure to $10.8bn, $12bn and $20bn. The Federal
Government was accused of delaying the audit.
Some had concluded the report would never be
made public.

The Auditor-General of the Federation has
published highlights of the report. The main point
was that NNPC should pay $1.48bn representing
the balance of the signature bonus for the oil
assets Shell divested. NNPC’s upstream
subsidiary, Nigerian Petroleum Development
Company, NPDC, was assigned the assets. A
more appealing interest appears to remain in the
billions Mallam Sanusi declared missing.

Was the signature bonus part of the missing
billions of dollars? if it was, what happened to the
rest of the money? The politicisation of the report
would not be helpful to the cause of the accusers
and the longer term interest of NNPC and the
industry.

Even the National Assembly appears split on the
matter. The Senate Committee on Finance
conducted an independent report that absolved
NNPC of the allegation of the missing money. The
House of Representatives had then stood down its
own motion to investigate the allegation on
discovering the Senate Committee on Finance
was investigating the same matter.

We support the House of Representatives demand
that the full report should be published. It is part
of the House’s oversight functions. Issues of
probity should get adequate attention and one of
the numerous duties of the House is to protect
the public and its interests, the NNPC being one
such interest.

However, the House’s piecemeal interest in NNPC
is not sustainable. One of the best ways of
establishing a long lasting watch on the affairs of
NNPC is the passage of the Petroleum Industry
Bill, PIB, which has been stalled in the National
Assembly since 2000. The PIB would provide the
legal basis for the long-awaited wholesome
transformation of the NNPC which the PwC report
also recommended.

Indictment of NNPC and establishment of the
thresholds, which the House craves, are
challenging with an extant law, the NNPC Act,
which empowers the corporation to defray its
operation costs and expenditures from proceeds
of crude oil sales. The Senate and PwC, in their
separate reports, noted that the NNPC Act formed
the legal basis of expenditures the NNPC made.

Until the law is changed, neither the House of
Representatives, nor anyone, can do much to
transform the NNPC or getting it to stop using
crude oil proceeds in financing its operations.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/03/at-last-the-nnpc-audit/