Reporters had earlier in the day been invited to attend a post meeting press briefing at the auditorium of Federal Ministry of Finance at 6pm.
By 7.30 pm however, Accountant General of the Federation, Mr Ahmed Idris, stormed out of the venue followed by other officials including Director of Home Finance, Mrs Siyanbola.
Although no official was willing to speak on the outcome, an observer from one of the member agencies told Nigerian Tribune that “there is nothing to brief you on.”
ALSO READ: We are discussing with World Bank on Nigeria’s petrol consumption data ―NNPC
According to him, members still refused to accept the figures that Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) presented to the members.
The meeting was then put forward to Thursday.
Many states were yet to pay salaries for June 2018 due to inability of FAAC to share revenue allocation for May.
Forum of Finance Commissioners on June 30, accused NNPC of failing to remit any amount from crude oil sales into Federation Account for the month of May, 2018.
Its Chairman, Mr Mahmoud Yunusa, said the corporation also wanted to shortchange the Federation by ₦20.6 billion from petroleum profit tax (PPT) and royalties for the month.
While briefing journalists on current stalemate between NNPC and FAAC, Mahmoud expressed determination of states to face the consequences that delayed allocations would engender until the recurrent issues were resolved once and for all.
He said NNPC lied by claiming it has agreement with state governors to remit a maximum of ₦112 billion per month.
According to him governors insisted NNPC must remit at least N112 billion per month when crude sold for around $50 per barrel.
“There are a lot of happenings with the NNPC, we have read in the papers that NNPC said it has remitted what it was supposed to remit to FAAC. NNPC claims it has remitted N147 billion but what the NNPC actually remitted to FAAC is N127 billion. By law NNPC is required to remit all funds accrued from the sales of crude oil. Based on our analyses, this N127 billion is inclusive of royalty and PPT.
“How can that be? But the law establishing these agencies (DPR and FIRS), royalty should be given to DPR, while PPT should be given to FIRS in line with the law.
“ NNPC has remitted N127 billion and it claims it was expected to remit only N112 billion, even if they had agreed with the governor’s to remit N112 billion when the oil was sold at $50 per barrel, what stops them from paying more now that the oil price is at $80 per barrel?”
The Commissioner who said the Forum and the entire FAAC was behind Minister of Finance ìn confronting NNPC explained that the corporation had always acted lawlessly forgetting that it is owned by the Federation and mandates to do business and make profit on behalf of all Nigerians.
Although royalties were supposed to be remitted to Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and PPT to Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), NNPC failed to act according to the law but remitted directly to Federation Account.
“NNPC just brought the money in a lump sum thinking they can bamboozle us without doing the break down.
“Based on what is happening in the economy especially in the oil and gas sector, the oil price is at $80 per barrel and the production is steady which we are producing about two million barrels per day we expect that the remittance from the NNPC should add value to what the federal government is doing.
“DPR confirmed to us that based on the production capacity, the royalty should be at N60.8 billion so when you add this N60 billion with the N127 billion remitted by the NNPC, it will give you N187.8 billion.
“The N60.8 billion royalty was supposed to have come through DPR. The royalty supposed to have come separately from DPR but the NNPC does not remit it to DPR. Again, based on the record of the NNPC which it uses in calculating PPT is 1/1:46.
“ Whatever, the amount, you multiply it by 1:46 therefore, the expected PPT is N87.6 billion.”
The Forum also frowned at NNPC’s practice of arbitrarily deducting monies for supposed expenses.
Yunusa said for May, NNPC claimed that it spent ₦3.5 billion on pipeline repairs without consultation with DPR, statutorily empowered to check and document such damages.
The corporation also claimed to have spent ₦31billion on fuel subsidies for the month.
and then