The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has urged the Federal Government to revisit oil assets transfer by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to its subsidiary, Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (NPDC).
Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mr Waziri Adio, made the call in a statement by the agency’s Director, Communications, Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, on Tuesday in Abuja.
Adio said that review of the transfer was imperative in view of the “under-valuation, non – payment for the assets and the inability of the NPDC to make returns on the investments.”
He urged that NPDC should be accountable to the federation over its management of the oil assets in its custody.
Adio said that NEITI had found out that total unremitted revenue to the federation by the NPDC was about 5.5 billion dollars and another N72.4 billion.
He said that NEITI had observed that beyond the unremitted monies, there were issues of transparency and efficiency with the operations of NPDC.
According to him, since 2005, NNPC had transferred 16 Oil Mining Licenses (OMLs) to NPDC.
The executive secretary added that the process of transfer of these assets raised serious questions as there appeared to be no clear-cut criteria for transfer of oil mining assets to NPDC.
“The process for the transfer of the Federation’s assets to NPDC does not seem to pass the transparency test.
“One of the upshots of this is the undervaluation of these assets, thereby depriving the Federation of optimal value for the assets.
“The undervaluation NEITI reported results from NNPC’s divestment of its 55 per cent shares in the Shell Joint Venture which it valued at 1.8 billion dollars.
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