The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Thursday disclosed that Nigeria was indebted to international oil companies (IOCs) to the tune of $5.1 billion through the Joint Venture Cash Call (JVC) business arrangements.
The corporation’s Chief Financial Officer, Mr Isiaka Abdulrasaq, gave this hint when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Gas.
Abdulrazaq explained that the indebtedness dated back to the last administration which failed to honour Nigeria’s funding obligation under the JVC arrangements.
He said: “The problem however is that before this government came on board in 2015, Nigeria which holds 60 percent of shares in the joint business, for many years did not contribute its own required capital into it but only collecting its equity in form of revenues which made the country to as at 2015 be having $6.8bn unpaid capital into the venture.
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“But the present government in 2016 succeeded in getting 35 percent discount from the unpaid capital amounting to $1.9bn from the unpaid capital , making the country to be owing the IOCs $5.1 billion now”, he added.
On the $3.2 billion allegedly withdrawn by NNPC from the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas’ (NLNG’s) dividend account since 2015, the CFO debunked insinuations about any mismanagement of the withdrawals made.
Abdulrazaq explained further that available records with the NNPC showed that only 13 withdrawals totalling $1.2 billion were made from the account.
He noted that based on the recent misrepresentation of the actual withdrawals and the attendant fraud insinuations, at least seven IOCs out had been apprehensive on continuing their business operations with the corporation.
In his remarks, the Chairman of the committee, Senator Albert Akpan, asked the CFO to submit approving documents for all the withdrawals to the committee by next Tuesday.
He said: “We are not saying any money has been stolen. What we are doing is clarifying processes of expenditures made from the account with a view to making management of the account more transparent and beneficial to Nigerians.”
