Senate demands for audited accounts of NNPC, DPR, NAPIMS, others

The Senate Committee on Gas Resources has demanded for detailed audited account of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and its subsidiaries in the past three years.
NNPC’s subsidiaries expected to submit their audited accounts are the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, the Nigerian Petroleum Investment and Management Service and the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas among others.‎
The Chairman of the committee, Senator Albert Akpan, gave the directive during an interactive session with the agencies.
Akpan said the request was in line with the mandate of the committee in its ongoing investigation into the activities of the agencies.
Akpan expressed dissatisfaction with the 2016 Budget of the Department of Petroleum Resources, saying the N3 billion only earmarked by the agency on penalties for gas flaring was grossly inadequate.‎
He also picked hole in the activities of the agencies since their establishments.
He insisted that 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 the opportunity to know the joint venture funding and cost determination of the oil companies and government agencies.
“From here, we will know also who approves projects and how are the projects monitored and the mechanism for cost recovery and monitoring of the projects,” he said.
Akpan also tasked the agencies to present the data of the quality of gas flared by the oil companies in the past two years.
He said: “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.”
Speaking, the Group General Manager of NAPIMS/NNPC, Dafe Sajebor, and the Managing Director of the National Petroleum Development Corporation, Sadler Mai-Bornu, said their organizations were working assiduously to end gas flaring in the country between 2018 and 2020.
Sajebor said: “The percentage of gas flared in the country is of average, seven per cent, and we are still working on a number of projects to flare out.
“We are targeting 2018 for us to have a total flare out.
“Those evolutions have been translated and proposed for better fiscal regime in the Petroleum Industry Bill and that is why we are praying and hoping that the PIB should be passed so that Nigerians can derive better benefits from the oil and gas investment.”