NEC To Employ Foreign Auditors To Probe Jonathan’s Tenure
Aug 07, 2015 Oby Okeke

The National Economic Council, NEC, Ad-hoc committee on the Management of Excess Crude Account Proceeds and Accruals into Federation account, is set to hire two international forensic audit firms to probe accrued revenue and expenses under the administration of immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan.

Addressing journalists in Abuja on Thursday after the committee’s first meeting, chairman Adams Oshiomhole said the auditors would cover the period: January 1, 2010 to June 1, 2015.

Some revenue generating agencies have been invited to brief the committee which will take detailed briefings from all Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs of the Federal Government that deal directly with revenue.

According to Oshiomhole, the focus will be on major aspects of the economy including: the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, the Central bank of Nigeria, CBN, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI.

Asked rationale for hiring external persons, he said himself and other members Gov. Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai of Kaduna State, Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe, and Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom were not professionals, and also did not want their actions to lead to political interpretations.

He also said that even if they were professionals, their duties as governors would not permit them the time to do a thorough work.

“We held our first primary session today (Thursday) here with some of the revenue generating agencies that are supposed to remit funds to the federation account. We had a successful session with Customs, NPA, NEITI, SEC, FIRS, and quite a number of others and next week we will also hear from CBN, Ministry of Finance, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.

“For the remaining ones, we agree we are going to meet on Thursday next week, NNPC, NPDC, DPR, NIMASA and other remaining agencies.

“We have started the work, with the idea to hear them out, what they have been doing, with particular emphasis on revenue accruing from these organizations and whether or not these have been remitted to the Federation Account for judicious distribution.

“We realised that this is a task and given our mandate, even if we were professional accountants because we are sitting governors, we would not have the time to do a forensic audit which this assignment entails.

“Therefore, we have agreed in line with our mandate to appoint two reputable international audit firms to carry out a thorough forensic audit, not only of NNPC, which is more of excess crude, but other monies that accrued to the Federation Accounts. We have other revenues like bonuses, royalties, taxes, VAT that flow into the Federation Account.

“We are taking a holistic review of the entire process, looking at all the agencies that make contribution of funds to the federation account.

“We are convinced that by appointing audit firms, we will allow professionals to carry out this exercise, so that it will be free of any political colouration and also we will ensure the outcome of the investigation will.

“We have learned, we have listened and asked questions. I think we all have a clear picture of what is happening in those organizations before now. Some have information to supply and we have drawn attention to those areas, they are willing to oblige. We believe in the end, we will be able to not just establish what had happened over the period but much more important, going forward with the changes the President has promised the country.

“It is not going to be business as usual. He started on a clean slate and everybody knows the new rules of the game and in particular as the laws apply to the various institutions are implemented in full. So I think we started very well. We are very confident that we are going to come out with something that is going to be of immense benefits to the Nigerian people”.


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Ok. But can't a local firm do it?

Two firms to audit NNPC, Customs, Firs, others
August 7, 2015 News 199 Views

TWO auditors who are to examine the books of all revenue generating agencies will be named next Thursday.

Their job is to ascertain the level of compliance with established regulations on the remittance of revenues to the treasury.

For audit are: Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) and others.

The National Economic Council (NEC) ad-Hoc Committee on the Management of Excess Crude Account Proceeds and Accruals into the Federation Account took the decision yesterday at its first meeting in Abuja.

Edo State Governor and Chairman of the committee Adams Oshiomhole said at the end of its fourth meeting with the revenue agencies that the decision to appoint reputable audit firms would rid the process of any political undertone and also ensure the handling of the matter by professionals.

Oshiomhole also announced that the NNPC, NPDC, DPR and NIMASA will be appearing before the committee next Thursday.

Some of the agencies that appeared yesterday include: Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), NCS, FIRS and the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) among others.

The meeting of the committee with the revenue generating agencies which started at about 11.00am lasted till about 8.30pm at the Imo Hall of the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja.

The four-man committee which was set up after the meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC), headed by Vice President Yemi Osibanjo, has Oshiomhole as chairman and governors Ibrahim Dankwambo (Gombe), Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom) and Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna) as members.

The committee was given a mandated, to, among others, investigate claims by the NNPC to have earned N8.1 trillion  (about $40 billion or 36 billion euros), with only N4.3 trillion paid into the Federation Account, while withholding and spending N3.8 trillion.

They have also been mandated to investigate massive dip in the Excess Crude Account, into which the difference between government-set oil prices and the international rate is deposited.

He said the “rainy day” account had plunged to $2 billion from $4.1 billion in November last year.

Oshiomhole said that the whole idea was to hear from the agencies what they have been doing and to find out whether the revenues generated were properly remitted for onward distribution to the three tiers of government.

He noted that the committee decided to extend its scope to other agencies because it is not only the NNPC that generates revenues for the government which are supposed to be remitted to the Federation Account, even though the major attention of Nigerians has been on the Excess Crude Account.

He said: “We decided to have a holistic view of the entire process and we are convinced that by appointing reputable audit firms to handle the process, it will be devoid of any form of politics and at the end, the outcome will earn the confidence of all agencies involved and Nigerians.”

He said further that some of the agencies that appeared before his committee yesterday have more information to provide and they have been told to do so, pointing out that in line with the present administration’s policy,  it will no longer be business as usual.

Oshiomhole argued that while Nigerians will be wondering why another forensic audit when PricewaterCoopers (PwC) had already audited the NNPC, he said: “You will agree with me that even PwC complained about the frustrations it had in carrying out its job as the informations it needed were not provided.

“You cannot carry out a successful audit without adequate information. There was no instrument to compel the NNPC to open their books. But with Buhari, the agencies must open their books or be ready to confront the government”, he said.

According to him, the audit will be expected to cover the period between January 2010 and June 2015, adding that “if the audit report requires that we look backward beyond that period, it will be done. But we are looking at a five year period for now.”

He, however, said the committee would not impose a time limit on the audit firms, saying “We have just taken the decision today. We will not impose time limit on them before we formally engage them. We will discuss with the, and by next week Thursday, we will officially announce the names of the two firms we are engaging to undertake the job.”

http://scannewsnigeria.com/news/two-firms-to-audit-nnpc-customs-firs-others/

NNPC: Buhari awaits NEC’s probe report
AUGUST 9, 2015 : OLALEKAN ADETAYO 33 COMMENTS
     


President Muhammadu Buhari


President Muhammadu Buhari has yet to take a decision on the report of the forensic auditors, PriceWaterHouse, engaged by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan to investigate the activities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, SUNDAY PUNCH has learnt.

Jonathan had on February 2 received the report of the firm, which was last year hired to carry out the exercise following an allegation by former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, that $20billion was not remitted to the Federation Account by the NNPC.

The former President, on April 27, directed that the full report be made public less than 24 hours after Buhari, who had emerged the President-elect promised that his administration would probe Sanusi’s claim.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, told our correspondent on Saturday that the present administration would wait for the outcome of the ongoing investigation initiated by the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo-led National Economic Council.

The council, comprising all state governors, had during its first meeting on June 29 set up a four-man committee to scrutinise the account of the NNPC and the Excess Crude Account managed by the last administration.

Governors of Edo, Gombe, Kaduna and Akwa Ibom States were named members, while Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, was asked to join them at the NEC’s last meeting.

Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State had told reporters after a meeting of the committee during the week that two international firms would be hired to audit the corporation’s account.

Adesina said the President would rather wait for the Oshiomhole committee to turn in its report before a decision would be taken on the matter.

He said, “There is an ongoing investigation initiated by the NEC led by the Vice President.

“You will recall that Governor Oshiomhole made some pronouncements on the committee’s activities during the week.

“We will rather wait for that investigation to be concluded and the report turned in.”

The audit report as made public by the Jonathan administration noticed some discrepancies in the subsidy regime among other infractions.

The discrepancies included the duplication of Premium Motor Spirit and Dual Purpose Kerosene subsidy claims, subsidy computation errors, subsidy claim on un-incurred DPK cost and over-claim of subsidy.

The sums from the subsidy discrepancies were embedded in the $1.48billion that the report asked the NNPC to refund to the Federation Account.

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