Reps direct DPR, AGF to provide details of N30bn unremitted crude oil revenue

House of Representatives

THE House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating the pump price of petroleum products has directed the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), to provide details of the N30 billion unremitted crude oil revenue into the Federation Account.

Honourable Raphael Nnana-Igbokwe who chaired the committee also issued a directive to Auditor General of the Federation (AGF) to provide the report on the N30 billion unremitted crude oil revenue and submit to the Committee for further inquiry.

The committee gave the directive at the ongoing investigation into the pump price of petroleum products between 2013 to 2017.

While scrutinising documents from DPR, the committee further discovered that DPR records for crude oil lifting in February 2017 showed that 2,845,142 barrels transferred to the Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Warri refineries, however, it was discovered that 3,853,647 barrels of crude oil were delivered to the three refineries, leaving excess of 1,008,505 barrels unaccounted for by DPR.

The committee also discovered that in the month of March 2017, DPR records showed that 3,227,556 barrels were supplied to the three refineries while the record showed 2,400,297 barrels documented, showing differential of the 827,259 barrels of crude oil unaccounted for by the agency.

Also, for the month of April 2017, DPR records showed that total crude oil worth 2,978,371 barrels was lifted, but the committee discovered that a total of 4,252,368 barrels was distributed to the three refineries, leaving a differential of 1,273,997 barrels unaccounted for.

The chairman of the committee in his reaction to the discovery chided DPR for failing to account for the actual crude oil lifted, saying that such development would deprive the three tiers of government the revenue accrued from the sale of crude oil.

According to him, “That is why we insisted on the record you sent to Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC). We’ve observed specific encroachment into government revenue. Remember we have an issue of N30 billion revenue for October which is yet to be accounted for. The government will continue to experience shortfall because the government can’t assess total revenue accruable due to the shortfall. So it is not about witch-hunt”.

In his response, Idris Abdulrahman, DPR Team lead on Crude, who adopted the document, explained that the N30 billion revenue was for February 2017 adding that some private oil marketers stocked some crude oil in the refineries.