By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has justified the N147 billion it remitted to the Federation Accounts and Allocation Committee (FAAC) in June 2018.
Yesterday, the FAAC meeting ended in deadlock over disagreement with the money remitted into the federation account by the corporation.
The Commissioners for Finance of the 36 states of the federation were not happy with the development, saying that NNPC under-remitted the revenue generated into the federal purse.
But reacting to the issue today, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division at the NNPC in Abuja, Mr Ndu Ughamadu, stressed that the amount remitted by the agency was in line with the terms of agreement it had with Governors on the matter.
According to him, the agreement NNPC had with the Governors was that the corporation would make a monthly remittance of N112 billion to FAAC subject to sufficient funds from sales of domestic crude oil allocation for the corresponding month after meeting cash call obligations on JVs, deductions of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS)-cost under recovery and pipeline maintenance.
The release stated that NNPC was able to surpass the terms of agreement with the Governors on the monthly remittance for the month of June by N35 billion, having taken a cue from their postures by taking from the sum meant for settling cash call obligations.
Mr Ughamadu said the corporation regretted the Governors’ additional request of N40 billion, saying it was unfortunate, given the fact that NNPC was set to exit the cash call phenomenon.