Fuel subsidy probe: How 69 oil firms looted N241bn.

After the marathon high profile probe of the management of fuel subsidy by the House of Representatives that is due for presentation today, some 69 oil firms have been indicted.

The document of the probe that is compiled into a volume of about 200 pages indicted 69 oil companies as embezzling N229,706,023,200 on behalf of all Nigerians in fuel import between 2006 and last year. However, there are extra costs arising from the activities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that brought the figure not genuinely accounted for to N241b.

The House, however recommended that the said sum, which stands for 3,345,378259 litres of oil be refunded the Federal Government. The House panel also recommended that the companies indicted by the probe be investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for prosecution where necessary.

The recommendations include that “the office of the Accountant-General of the federation should account for N213.678 billion being the total of excess payments made by it over and above what PPPRA identified as paid in 2009 and 2010.”

The panel on page 133 of the report also ordered that the EFCC and ICPC should ensure that the Accountant-General’s office accounts for the over-recovery figures of N2.76 billion and N5.27 billion respectively.”

On the role of the NNPC in the mess, the House noted that: “in addition to CBN’s payment of N844.944 billion as represented on the Federation Account components statement, NNPC made a direct deduction of N847.942b as subsidy in 2011, bringing all claims by the NNPC on subsidy in 2011 to N1,692.886 trillion.”

The Farouk Lawan panel also accused the NNPC of unilaterally and unlawfully reversing a presidential order stopping subsidy deductions without a presidential directive to that effect.
The table of the 69 indicted companies indicated that the highest culprit in the subsidy largesse is to cough out N13,252b. (Daily Sun)