NNPC claims recovery of N2 bn out of N11bn products diverted by Capital Oil
A fresh twist on Wednesday emerged on the alleged missing of petroleum products belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), domiciled in the tank farm belonging to Capital Oil facility as the agency claimed it has recovered the sum of N2 billion from Capital oil and Gas.
The sum, according to the NNPC formed part of the ‘missing’ N11 billion worth of petroleum products stored under an agreement at Capital Oil’s tank farms facility in Apapa, Lagos.
The matter, it would be recalled went to the extent of involving the DSS who within the preliminary period, arrested and detailed the oil magnate, Chief Ifeanyi Ubah for some weeks.
However, another round of twist evolving now is the current move by the House of Representatives committee on Petroleum Resources Downstream who has asked the management of Capital Oil and Gas to appear before the committee yesterday or face legislative sanctions.
According to the House Committee, the invitation became very imperative due to the inability of the Committee to successfully serve its invasion on the company despite many attempts to do so.
In the submissions of the Committee chairman, Hon. Joseph Akinlaja, “the matter over which the company was being invited has impact on the funding of the National budget”.
NNPC’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), Downstream, Henry Nkem-Obih revealed that “The Thorough agreement we had clearly states that no party involved in this transaction is authorised to touch each other’s inventory without a written consent of the other party, but in this case no such thing happened”.
“Since NNPC is a government agency, the matter was referred to the DSS and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to recover the loss of government asset valued at over N11 billion.
“We have since been engaged in various levels of negotiations from the agreement level where there is a notice period within which the defaulting party is expected to return the product to storage either in liters or in cash.
“It was when this did not happen that we sought help from other quarters to ensure that we recover this timely.
“The update is that Capita oil and gas has since paid N2 billion out of the outstanding and we are engaged in discussion to ensure that we recover the rest in full and the negotiation is facilitated by the DSS.
“We hope that Capital Oil will comply in full in the shortest possible time because this does have implications for funding the National budget and the National revenues,” he added.
In his opening remarks, Speaker of the House or Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara said “The Committee should thoroughly investigate the matter and ensure that perpetrators are sanctioned accordingly so as to prevent re-occurrence and to also act as deterrent to others”.
He noted that such infractions can frustrate a national budget and possibly plunge the nation into an unnecessary fuel crisis.
