By Kolawole Ojebisi
The Senate Committee on Public Accounts has faulted the audited financial statements released by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) on the grounds that it shows discrepancies totaling N210 trillion.
The committee claimed that the discrepancies were discovered during a probe into the financial statements with the assistance of external auditors.
The chairman of the committee, Aliyu Wadada, stated this during its session on Thursday.
“We and NNPC and external auditors are here because of discrepancies that we have discovered from their audited financial statements, which is in the public domain already,” Wadada said.
“So any document that contradicts what is contained in their audited financial statement is in abhorrence here. We have no question.
“I mean, as far as we are concerned, it’s just a paper. We are not even looking at that. Because the issues are all on, about, and around their audited financial statement.”
He said the external auditors’ involvement highlighted the gravity of the situation.
“The figure of the accrued expenses is N103 trillion, while the figure of the receivables is N107 trillion,” Wadada said.
“So in total, figure-wise, you are talking N210 trillion.”
He said the committee was working to understand contradictions in the audited financial statements.
“They said reconciliation had not been done. So if reconciliation was not done, why did they sign off to the audited financial statement?” Wadada said.
“And this audited financial statement is already in the public domain. And NNPC is planning to go to the market for initial public offer (IPO). But it is not for us to go into conclusions now.”
While making clarifications about the alleged discrepancies, Adedapo Segun, chief financial officer (CFO) of NNPC, said the disputed N107 trillion was related to what he described as “joint venture (JV) cash calls”.
“The N107 trillion, essentially, are made up of JV cash calls that have been requested by the JV operators and JV cash call payments that have been made by NNPC, which were yet to be reconciled because the governance procedure was not done at the time,” Segun said.
He added, “And that is why we see the description reflecting the fact that those two items would wash out because they are basically two sides of the same transaction, which is the cash calls from the JV partners and the settlements by NNPC.”
After Segun’s response, Wadada gave the national oil firm “a body of questions to put answers together” and asked NNPC to respond within one week.
