Meanwhile, the testimony by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke over the controversial missing $20 billion at the investigative hearing organised by the Senate Finance Committee may have absolved the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke and the oil ministry from any wrong doing.
From the testimony of the AGF, it was gathered that rather than the big discovery of fraud and mismanagement that necessitated the probe, senators have discovered that the suspended CBN Governor raised false alarm and misled the committee.
The Senate Finance Committee had raised fresh queries over the suspension of the CBN governor following emerging facts which it said contradicted his initial allegation of alleged missing $49.8 billion oil revenue.
The Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led committee had through a memo to CBN specifically demanded that the committee be furnished with detailed information on how much ought to have been paid into the federation account out of the money.
Sanusi had informed the committee that the CBN was of the belief that part of the money realised from the sale of crude oil ought to have been paid to the Federation account.
As a result of contradiction in the branding of figures by the apex bank governor, the committee warned that all claims must substantiated devoid of frivolity.
But in the testimony, Adoke said, “Only the net revenue from upstream petroleum operations of the NPDC should be paid into the Federation Account by the NNPC. In other words, NPDC is required to pay only what amounts to dividend and its crude oil proceeds to the NNPC ( as its holding company) and the NNPC will in turn pay that into the Federation Account.
Consequently, what the NNPC is required to pay into the Federation Account is the ‘net revenue’ as opposed to the gross revenue.”
Mr. Adoke informed that it was instructive to note that by virtue of paragraph 14 to 16 of the First Schedule of the Petroleum Act, CAP.P.10 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, LFN, 2004 (NNPC Act) and Regulation 4 of the Petroleum (Drilling and Productions) Regulations 1969 as amended, a holder of an OML or Oil Prospecting License (OPL) can assign its interest provided the consent of the Minister of Petroleum Resources is obtained.
“Furthermore, section 6(1)(C) of the NNPC Act empowers the NNPC to establish and maintain subsidiaries for the discharge of its functions. The NPDC was thus incorporated as a limited liability upstream company of NNPC to carry out its upstream operations as envisaged by the law,” Adoke submitted.
This explanation jolted some members of the committee and one of them said, “The committee is equally disturbed by the testimonies of the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke, to the extent that the NNPC did not need to remit all revenues it generates. We need to now ask for what is the exact percentage of the revenue of NNPC should be remitted.”
The Attorney General had declared that despite the constitutional provisions requiring that all revenues be paid into the Federation account, NNPC could still deduct its cost of business.
He said, “Thus, it is my considered view that the provision of section 162 which requires all revenue to be remitted to the Federation Account does not preclude the deduction of NNPC’S expenditure or cost of business.
” This is more so as the federating units odo not contribute to the funding of upstream petroleum operations of the NNPC and its subsidiary.”
The committee was said to be shocked that the presidential directive which the oil ministry was accused of disobeying was never concluded and that it even contained contradictory provisions which make it implementation impossible.
