The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has threatened to issue warrants of arrest against heads of 17 subsidiaries under the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Ltd over their failure to appear before it based on various audit queries by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation (AuGF).
The chairman of the committee, Wole Oke (PDP, Osun), disclosed this when the NNPC Group Managing Director (GMD), Mele Kyari, appeared before the committee yesterday without the heads of the 17 subsidiaries as requested.
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The 17 subsidiaries were indicted by the report of the Auditor General of the Federation over various alleged financial infractions between 2014 and 2019.
Expressing his disappointment, Oke said the action of the NNPC in shielding its subsidiaries amounted to hiding something from the over 200 million Nigerians who are the owners of the companies.
During his appearance, Kyari dismissed the reports that about 107 million barrels of crude oil could not be accounted for in 2018 adding that the company was not hiding anything from Nigerians.
He added that he would take responsibility for the actions of the subsidiaries. Kyari said, “NNPC has nothing to hide. We have nothing to hide from Nigerians.
In view of that, we have published the same audited account that you have for Nigerians to see, read and comment on.
“Those accounts are a complete reflection of all our transactions, including our subsidiary companies. So, we are hiding nothing from Nigerians.
“I agree with you that we can be more transparent. Can we do something different from this? Absolutely yes. Are we doing enough? Yes, we are doing more than enough. No national oil company in this world publishes its audited statement of account. There is no company that publishes its monthly report as we do.
“Therefore, I expect that you should congratulate us that we are doing more than expectations in terms of transparency and accountability.
“We owe this to Nigerians because it is their company and we sincerely believe that these companies are owned by the over 200 million Nigerians; we are accountable to them and we must be transparent by every means possible.”
However, Oke dismissed Kyari’s submission saying that the heads of the subsidiaries were supposed to account for what happened under their assigned responsibilities as heads of the affected agencies.
He said, “With due respect, the NNPC is not in a position to dictate to parliament how it conducts its business. We have to change the impression of Nigerians about NNPC.
“We have listened to the comments of some governors about NNPC and we must change the narration by telling Nigerians that NNPC operates transparently.
“Except and except you have something to hide, then you can’t continue to shield these subsidiaries. But they must appear before Nigerians and tell them about the funds in their kitty.
“They have to come here and answer the queries about the abnormalities the auditor general observed in their operations. This is our position.”
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