Audit report: N210trn yet to be accounted for by NNPCL – Senate

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The Senate on Thursday clarified that the alleged N210 trillion financial infraction raised against Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) in the 2017-2023 audit report had yet to be accounted for by the company.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Public Accounts, Sen. Aliyu Wadada, made the clarification at the resumed hearing of the committee on the 2017-2023 Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation’s audit on expenditure of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

Wadada maintained that NNPCL did not account for the said fund as raised by the reports, contrary to media reports that the money had been stolen by the company.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the committee had, at the investigative session with management of NNPCL on June 26, directed the company’s Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), Bayo Ojulari, to appear before it on July 10.

Ojulari’s appearance, the senate said, was to enable him to account for the fund and answer other queries raised against NNPCL in the audit report.

NAN reports that based on the directive, the committee, at the resumed hearing on Thursday, did not allow NNPCL’s Chief Financial Officer, Mr Dapo Segun, to make any presentation on Ojulari’s behalf.

The NNPCL GCEO was said to have travelled for Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting in Vienna, Austria.

The committee, via its chairman, therefore, directed Ojulari to appear before it unfailingly on a date to be communicated, to explain the alleged financial infractions and other queries raised against NNPCL.

Wadada, before making the declaration, clarified that the committee did not have anything against anyone in NNPCL, but was only discharging its constitutional duty of making Nigeria work by investigating how public funds were expended by MDAs.