From Dennis Mernyi, Abuja

THE Nigerian National Pe­troleum Corporation (NNPC) has described as inaccurate and erroneous, the declaration that it failed to remit the sum of N3.235 trillion to the Fed­eration Account.
The Corporation in a state­ment signed Wednesday by its Group Executive Direc­tor/Chief Financial Officer (Finance & Accounts), Isiaka Abdulrazaq, said that the Au­ditor General of the Federa­tion (AuGF)’s declaration was not only inaccurate but errone­ous.
He said the declaration by the AuGF may have been borne out of misunderstanding of how revenues from crude oil and gas sales are remitted into the Federation Account.
According to him, the figure owed the Federation Account as at January 2015 Federation Account Allocation Commit­tee (FAAC) meeting report was N326,142,137,205.79 (which is still being recon­ciled) and not the N3.23 tril­lion alleged by the AuGF.
The NNPC, which was responding to the declaration made by the AuGF to the National Assembly on March 14, 2016 where he alleged that it failed to remit the sum of N3.235 trillion to the Fed­eration Account for the period ended December 31, 2014, said it was inaccurate.
Abdulrazaq stated that as part of its responsibilities, NNPC is allocated 445,000 barrels per day for process­ing into petroleum products for distribution to consumers across the nation. Any un­processed crude is sold and the proceeds used to pay for importation of petroleum prod­ucts. The proceeds from the sale of these products are remitted to the Federation Account after deducting the cost associated with the supply and distribution.
The NNPC chief further ex­plained that the costs include subsidy on petroleum products, which, as a major supplier of petroleum products to the na­tion, it is entitled to claims from petroleum products sold at government regulated price (whether imported or locally refined).
“The process and determi­nation of appropriate subsidy claim is managed by PPPRA which ultimately issues certifi­cates after deductions from do­mestic crude cost.
“The total amount of sub­sidy that have been approved and certified by PPPRA for the period of January 2012 to December 2014 was N2.34 tril­lion. An additional N7.96 bil­lion subsidy claim is still under reconciliation.
On crude oil and petroleum product losses, the Corpora­tion noted that losses from crude oil and petroleum prod­ucts as a result of vandalism on its network of pipelines for the period of January 2012 to December 2014 was N202.68 billion while petroleum prod­uct strategic holding cost and pipeline repairs and mainte­nance cost for between Janu­ary 2012 and December 2014