The House of Representatives’ Committee on Public Accounts Committee has issued a seven-day ultimatum to heads of the 17 subsidiaries of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to appear before it or risk being arrested by warrant of the House.
The Office of the Auditor General of the Federation had in its audit queries accused NNPC’s subsidiaries of failing to render their audited accounts over the years.
Those with queries against them include the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited, Petroleum Products Marketing Company Limited, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency and NNPC Retail Limited, National Petroleum Investment & Management Services.
The committee has been holding investigative hearings on the audit queries issued by the OAUGF against ministries, departments and agencies of the Federal Government.
Repeatedly, the committee had summoned the Group Managing Director, NNPC, Mr Mele Kyari, as well as head of the corporation’s subsidiaries, asking them to respond to the various audit queries issued by the OAUGF.
The corporation and its subsidiaries were accused of deliberate and reckless refusal to render accounts from 2014 to 2018, in breach of extant financial regulations in the queries.
The committee had earlier threatened to issue arrest warrants against the heads due to their failure to show up.
Chairman of the committee, Oluwole Oke, while giving issuing the ultimatum due to non-appearance by the managements of the subsidiaries on Friday, threatened that the panel would be forced to issue arrest warrants against the heads.
Oke stated, “They are to appear before the committee at its investigative hearing on the several audit queries raised against them by the Auditor-General of the Federation over the years.”
The chairman said the committee just discovered that while all MDAs had been operating on the Treasury Single Account, the NNPC had been using its subsidiaries to operate commercial bank accounts without the knowledge of the Accountant General of the Federation.
