Missing oil funds: NNPC returns N7.61billion out of N3 trillion to federation account

Following a series of back and forth
arguments about how much money is
being owed to the nation’s federation
account by the Nigerian National
petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the latter
is said to have returned a sum of N7.16
billion to the said account.
The allegations of misconduct were first
levelled against the NNPC last year by
the Governor of the Central Bank, Sanusi
Lamido Sanusi.
Since then the sum in question has been
varied from an initial $49. 8 billion to a
very recently stated $20 billion.
The Tribune reports:
The Accountant-General of the
Federation, Mr Jonah Ogunniyi Otunla,
who presided over the February meeting
of the Federation Account Allocation
Committee (FAAC), following the exit of
Minister of State for Finance, Dr Lawan
Yerima Ngama, from the cabinet, said the
N7.61 billion was part of the debt owed
the federation by the NNPC.
He said the returned debt was part of the
N629.12 billion shared among the three
tiers of
government as allocations for January.
According to Mr Otunla, the shared
amount represented proceeds from
statutory allocation, N503.68 billion;
value added tax, N82.27 billion; Subsidy
Re-investment and Empowerment
Programme, N35.54 billion and the NNPC
refund of N7.61 billion
Out of the statutory allocation, the
Federal Government, after deducting the
cost of collection of N5.24 billion for the
Nigeria Customs Service and the Federal
Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), got
N235.02 billion, about 52.68 per cent;
the 36 states, N119.20 billion or 26.72
per cent; while the local governments got
N91.9 billion or 20.6 per cent.
Similarly, the oil producing states
received N52.30 billion, based on the 13
per cent derivation principle.
Otunla said the country recorded an
increase of N60.92 billion in gross
revenue, from N479.95 billion received in
December to N540.87 billion in January.
“The gross revenue of N540.87 billion
received for the month was higher than
the N479.95 billion received in the
previous month by N60.92 billion,
regardless of the disruptions in
production and lifting operations that
were witnessed in the month under
review, due to maintenance, multiple
leaks, pipeline breaks and theft,” Otunla
stated