Senate on Wednesday ordered the immediate probe of joint venture cash calls by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The bulk was passed to its Joint Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream and Downstream), Finance and Appropriation
Meanwhile, Petroleum Industrial Bill scaled first reading in the Senate, but it has been repackaged as Petroleum Industry and Governance Bill (PIGB).
Senate also expressed concern over an allegation that the NNPC had been violating rules governing its joint venture cash call responsibility.
It asked it’s committee to come up with sanctions for any known violation of appropriation acts in the oil and gas sector.
Senate position was followed by a motion sponsored by Senator Bassey Akpan who alleged persistent constraints by NNPC to meet its cash call obligations.
This has worsened the country’s crude oil production output and other activities in the oil and gas sector.
Akpan informed the lawmakers that cash calls ought to be treated as first line items by NNPC before remittance of available balance on its collectible revenues from crude sales to the federation account.
He said that such revenues ought to be handled as approved by the National Assembly.
He also said it was worrisome that crude oil production from the joint venture between NNPC and IOCs had declined by 47 per cent as at the last quarter of 2015.
That as a result of federal government’s inability to meet its cash call obligation.
Akpan also claimed that it was illegal and unconstitutional for NNPC to spend billions of dollars.
Those funds, he said, ought to be used to settle joint venture cash calls on “inconsequential administrative expenses.”
He recalled that the National Assembly had approved over N1 trillion as joint venture cash calls for 2016 fiscal year.
He said the legislative institution must ensure strict adherence to the approval as contained in 2016 Appropriation Act and Medium Term and Expenditure Framework (MTEF).
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