The Group Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, Mele Kyari, has explained why the company failed to release its Audited Financial Statement for 2022.
According to Kyari, the financial report was not released because the NNPCL did not have a substantive board of directors as of June 2023 when the report was ready.
A statement by the NNCL Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Olufemi Soneye, on Saturday evening, quoted Kyari as speaking during a meeting with the Deputy Executive Director, Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Mr Bady Baldé on Thursday.
Kyari had said that “NNPCL would have released its Audited Financial Statement for 2022 since June 2023 but could not do so because it had no substantive Board of Directors at that time, adding that the AFS will be published on the company’s website in the next few days”.
The statement added that Kyari “expressed disappointment with the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative for going public with its report that NNPC Ltd failed to remit some monies into the Federation Account instead of seeking clarification on any perceived gap in its assessment.”
The NNPCL boss was said to have explained at the meeting that the company “was holding no public funds back and that what NEITI reported as non-remittance was what was due to the company as payment for taking the burden of fuel subsidy on behalf of the Federal Government”.
Soneye informed that the EITI boss scored the NNPCL high in its latest global assessment, adding the delegation’s visit was to communicate the group’s findings in its recent global assessment to the company. said NNPC Ltd. fared very well among companies in the same category.
Baldé had added that “only Equinox of Norway fared better than NNPC Ltd. in the assessment”.
He was said to have noted that there was still room for NNPCL to improve, stressing that compliance with global EITI standards will help boost the company’s credibility.
The EITI boss had also urged NNPC Ltd. to remain engaged to play an active role in its Nigerian unit, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
On his part, the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, called for the reconstitution of the NNPC/NEITI Joint Committee on Reconciliation, stressing that the committee could help in straightening out any grey areas.
The PUNCH had reported that NEITI in September 2023 said the NNPCL did not pay approximately N2.8 trillion in taxes to the Federal Government in 2022.
In its 2021 Oil and Gas Industry Report’, NEITI stated that of about N3.5tn ($8.25bn at N448/$1 exchange rate in 2022) owed the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission during the period under review, NNPCL was owing more than 80 percent (N2.8tn) of the outstanding tax collectible revenues.
According to the report, the unremitted sum consisted of about $279m earned by the Federation from trial marketing under First Exploration and Production Joint Venture; $8m from Oil Mining License 116 operated by a subsidiary of NNPCL, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company; $871m unremitted domestic crude oil sales, and about $46m unremitted balance from the domestic gas proceeds account as of December 31, 2021.
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