The House of Representatives Committee on Oil and Gas has vowed to issue a warrant of arrest on managing directors of 10 oil firms, if they fail to appear before the committee to to account for unremitted $250 million to the Federal Government’s purse.
Hon Jerigbe Agom, the Chairman of the committee on Oil and Gas condemned actions of the companies, including, Aiteo Energy, Neconde Energy, Frontier Energy and seven indigenous oil companies for allegedly not showing interest to remit the fund.
The lawmaker also accused the Managing Director Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) over failure to remit $10 million accrued debt in line with the agreement it reached with the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR.
The Managing Director has been invited by the committee to explain why the Operating Mining Lease 119 (OML 119) was producing 5,000 barrels in spite of its capacity to deliver beyond.
The Deputy Director, Planning, Department Petroleum Resources, Folashade Odunuga, said International Oil Companies (IOCs) had shown deep interest to pay their debts to the government’s coffers but was constrained by fiscal price disparity.The NPDC however promised to remit $10 million to narrow its debt, but it failed to fulfill its pledge.
Mrs. Odunuga said the agency would continue to play its watchdog role very well in the industry as well as make rigorous moves to block revenue leakages from the nation’s oil and gas sector.
The NNPC has been enmeshed in a series of unremmitted funds allegations to Government coffers with the introduction of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) which makes it mandatory for all government Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to remit their revenue collections to the Consolidated Revenue Account (CRA) at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
