The Senate has given the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Bayo Ojulari, 3 weeks to respond to queries raised in audit reports covering 2017 to 2023, over the alleged unaccounted sum of N210trn.
The directive was recently issued by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, chaired by Senator Ahmed Wadada Aliyu (Nasarawa West), after a session with Bayo.
Wadada disclosed that the money was neither missing nor stolen, but was yet to be properly accounted for.
According to him, the N210trn must be fully accounted for before the 3-week deadline expires, and the questions awaiting answers from NNPCL were extracted from the commission’s audited financial statement covering 2017 to 2023.
He established that the questions weren’t asked by the executive, and the judiciary hasn’t gotten involved as well.
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.
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,” he said.
Wadada maintained that the ongoing investigation aligns with the Senate’s constitutional mandate, stressing that the lawmakers have to get to the bottom of the matter.
He concluded by saying that written responses must be provided to all 19 queries within three weeks.
“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,” he added.
