NNPC Pays N450bn Debt to Federation Account 7 Years After Controversy Began

NNPC Pays N450bn Debt to Federation Account 7 Years After Controversy Began

Nigeria’s ministry of finance on Thursday confirmed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has offset its indebtedness of N450bn to the Federation Account.

Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mr Mahmoud Isa-Dutse, confirmed the payment to newsmen shortly after the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee meeting in Abuja on Thursday.

“As regards the NNPC repayment, the figure is zero because the NNPC has finished making the payment that they are supposed to make,” Dutse said.

Allegations that NNPC was indebted to the federation account to the tune of N450bn first emerged in 2010 following an audit that revealed that the corporation had failed to remit part of the revenue it generated for the country.

The corporation had failed to remit the money despite persistent pressure mounted by the then Chairman of FAAC and former Minister of State for Finance, Mr Remi Babalola.

However, after much pressure by state governors, the corporation agreed to a monthly repayment plan of N6.33bn from September 2011.

The permanent secretary to the finance ministry also revealed that the FAAC shared the sum of N462.4bn among the 3 tiers of government as statutory allocation for the month of May which was about N46.6bn higher than what was shared in April.

Dutse said, “The distributable statutory revenue for the month is N317.6bn. There is also a proposed distribution of N64.8bn, being the exchange rate differentials.

“Therefore, the total revenue distributable for the current month, including Value Added Tax of N79.9bn, is N462.3bn.”

He stated that the government generated N159.9bn as minerals revenue, which was a reduction of N17.7bn from the N177.7bn generated in April.

The permanent secretary added that after deducting the cost of collection for the revenue generating agencies, the Federal Government got N147.7bn; the states, N74.9bn; and local government councils, N57.8bn.

Punch reports that the sum of N20.5bn was also given to the oil producing states based on the 13 per cent derivation principle.