The Senate, Nigeria’s upper legislative chamber, has given the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Bayo Ojulari, three weeks deadline to respond to queries raised in the audit reports of the company from 2017-2023, over alleged unaccounted sum of N210 trillion.
The Red Chamber’s directive was given on Tuesday by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, chaired by Sen, Ahmed Wadada Aliyu, following the appearance of the GCEO during a session on the alleged unaccounted sum and other related matters.
The chairman clarified that the money was neither missing nor stolen, but that the committee was concerned about the company’s management to account for how it was spent.
He said: “The N210trn unaccounted for are broadly in two components of N103trn liabilities and N107trn assets, which must be accounted for. None of the 18 or 19 questions we asked NNPCL to explain neither come from the executive or judiciary.
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“They are questions extracted from the audited financial statement of the NNPCL by the Auditor-General covering 2017 to 2023.
“Also, this committee had not at any time said the N210trn in question as far as the queries are concerned, was stolen or missing. What the committee is doing is required investigation on queries raised in the report in line with its constitutional mandate.
“Therefore, the committee is giving NNPCL three weeks to forward written responses on all the 19 queries, after which the GCEO will be invited along with other management staff to appear for defence”, Aliyu stressed.
In his brief response, Ojulari, who appeared before the committee for the first time since his appointment, apologized to the lawmakers for not appearing earlier when the committee summoned him and promised that all necessary information about the disbursed fund would be provided by the NNPCL’s management as requested.
