Ebun Francis|
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC) on Friday dismissed as “misleading” Thursday’s disclosure by Nigeria police that it recovered about $470.5 million and N8 billion of NNPC funds hidden in commercial banks across the country.
In a statement by its spokesperson, Ndu Ughamadu, NNPC while dismissing the report, however, confirmed that some commercial banks with the corporation’s monies were yet to complete the remittance of the dollar deposits to the TSA and that the funds were ‘hidden’.
According to NNPC, both the presidency and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), as well as the CBN was also fully aware of the unremitted funds, and have been receiving periodic status reports on their balances.
The statement read, following the directive from the President on August 9, 2015, for government ministries, departments and agencies to transfer all monies to the TSA account at the CBN, the corporation had made a report to the Presidency on the challenges it was facing”.
”The challenges the NNPC reported included failure of some commercial banks to complete the transfer of dollar deposits”.
”Consequently, a presidential directive was issued for the CBN to ensure the funds were completely transferred to the Corporation’s TSA dollars account at the CBN”.
Ughamadu also said most of the commercial banks have since complied with the directive ”including the reported $470.5 million”, to the Corporation’s TSA dollars account.
On the alleged recovery of another N8 billion, the NNPC denied knowledge of any change in the subsisting presidential directive that all dollar balances must be transferred to NNPC’s CBN TSA dollar accounts.
Besides, Mr. Ughamadu said no such funds as reported by the Police have been deposited in the Corporation’s CBN TSA account.
“Consequently, NNPC’s record of the dollar funds still yet to be transferred by a few commercial banks cannot reflect the said recovery,” he said.
While the CBN carries out the Presidential directive to ensure complete transfer of dollar funds to the NNPC’s CBN TSA account, Mr. Ughamadu said NNPC would resist every attempt to subject these funds to five per cent whistle blowing fees.
He described any contemplation of any such act as unreasonable and waste of public funds, which have been in the full view of government all along.
“As an entity with fiduciary responsibility to the government and people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, NNPC’s commitment to transparency and accountability remains unwavering,” Mr. Ughamadu said.
It will be recalled that On Thursday, the Police authorities Force announced that it recovered funds which belonged to NNPC Brass LNG.
According to Jimoh Moshood, the police spokesperson, the monies were unremitted revenues by the NNPC to the Treasury Single Account at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in violation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive that all government monies be domiciled in the TSA.