The Federal Ministry of Finance has blamed the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, for its inability to provide records required to respond to financial queries raised in the 2021–2023 Oil and Gas Sector Audit Report of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Raymond Omachi, disclosed this while appearing before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts to respond to questions arising from financial infractions contained in the NEITI audit report.
Among the issues raised was a $3 billion pre-export financing loan obtained in 2012 to settle subsidy payments.
NEITI had raised concerns over the recovery of the loan from monthly federation revenue proceeds under the Pre-Export Financing and Project Eagle agreements.
The agency said the status and mechanism for recovering the loan remained unclear.
Omachi told the Senate committee that the Ministry’s ability to provide explanations and supporting records on some of the issues had been hindered by the failure of NNPCL to make the required documents available.
The development has prompted further scrutiny by the Senate committee into the financial transactions and outstanding queries contained in the NEITI audit report.
