The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts has scheduled December 15 for the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd. to appear and address alleged revenue leakages in the company.
Chairman of the committee, Bamidele Salam, gave the ruling at a hearing on Monday in Abuja after the NNPCL management failed to honour several earlier invitations.
In a letter addressed to the committee and read by Salam, the NNPCL management blamed its absence at Monday’s hearing on a meeting with the president and asked for a 60-day extension.
The lawmaker, however, said the committee had written to the NNPCL management more than seven times to appear, but it had declined to honour any of the invitations, giving similar excuses.
In his ruling, Salam said the committee found it unacceptable that such a large corporate organisation had “consistently defied” notices of hearing.
He said some major issues had been identified by the Auditor-General for the Federation, most of which bordered on revenue leakages amounting to trillions of naira that ought to have accrued to the government through NNPCL operations.
The lawmaker noted that the revenues had not been remitted into the federation account
Hassan Bappa (PDP–Taraba) said it was the responsibility of the committee to oversight institutions in Nigeria, stressing that NNPCL could not be above the committee.
Supporting the argument, Kafilat Ogbara (APC–Lagos) said the company had failed to honour invitations several times and should not be allowed to dictate a new date.
She said the committee should move a motion to compel NNPCL to appear before the week runs out a position also held by the Deputy Chairman of the committee, Jeremiah Umaru (APC–Nasarawa).
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