Another
indication that the country’s oil sector is deep in corruption emerged
on Thursday with a petition by the Liberian government alleging that the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation supplied one million barrels of
crude in excess of its request in 2009.
The petition tendered by a member of the House of
Representatives Ad Hoc Committee on the Subsidy Regime, Mr. James
Faleke, indicates that while the Liberian government requested 10,000
barrels of crude, the NNPC allegedly used a Nigerian firm to supply one
million barrels in excess of the request.
The petition was sent by the Office of the Auditor-General of Liberia.
The petitioners claimed that the corporation
collected full payment for the excess supply but did not remit the money
to the Federal Government.
“The petition is here with us; it has not been
addressed. We just feel that we should bring it to your notice”, Faleke
told the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mr. Austin Oniwon, who
appeared before the panel.
Oniwon dismissed the matter, saying that he was not
aware of the allegation but he promised to investigate the allegation
and report back to the committee.
Meanwhile, Total Nigeria Plc (Downstream) has denied that it collected excess subsidy payment of N2.6bn in 2011.
The company claimed that what was recorded as
overpayment against it came as a result of “time-lag effect between
submission of claims and the effective date of payments.”
The panel had accused Total last week of receiving N18.8bn in 2011 as subsidy on petrol instead of the N16.1bn due to it.
The Panel said the company’s Managing Director, Mr.
Francis Bussagol, did not give satisfactory answers when the allegation
was made last week.
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