The Senate resolved on Tuesday to probe the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) over the N8.4 trillion it withheld as expenditure incurred on payment of subsidies on petroleum products.
Another sum of N3.6tn is allegedly outstanding against the oil company as taxes it has yet to remit to the Federation Account.
In a bid to put to rest, the claims and counter-claims on the status of the Port Harcourt refinery, which the NNPCL gleefully announced last week to have started production, the Senate also resolved to empanel an ad hoc committee “move immediately to Port Harcourt to investigate some of the claims of the NNPCL.”
It described fresh claims that the refinery shut down operations again as “very serious allegations.”
This came as the Red Chamber passed the 2025-2027 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).
The documents project N47.9tn as the budget for 2025 and peg the exchange rate at N1,400/1USD across 2025-2027.
ALSO READ: JUST IN: Senate passes MTEF/FSP; to probe N8.4trn withheld by NNPCL
The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), made a submission to the Joint Senate Committees on Finance and National Planning and Economic Affairs last week, where it alleged that the NNPCL withheld N8.4tn it ought to have remitted to government as “claimed subsidies on petrol.”
A separate report by the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) also accused the company of failing to remit $2bn (₦3.6tn in taxes to the government.
On Tuesday, senators said for a government desperately seeking funds to finance its N47.9tn budget for 2025, the NNPCL’s books must be scrutinised to answer what happened to the withheld N8.4tn and the unpaid taxes.
The Tuesday’s plenary, which was presided over by the President of the Senate, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, mandated the Joint Senate Committees on Finance, Petroleum Upstream, and Petroleum Downstream to conduct the probe.
“The committees are further directed to verify the total cumulative amount of unremitted revenue (under-recovery) from the sale of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) by the NNPC between 2020 and 2023”, the Senate said.
The Senate approved a projected GDP growth rate 4.6%, 4.4% and 5.5% for years 2025, 2026 and 2027 respectively as recommended by the MTEF/FSP documents.
On crude oil benchmark, the Senate approved USD75, USD76.2 and USD75.3 per barrel 2025, 2026 and 2027 respectively.
On oil production, it said, “that the three-year projections for domestic crude oil production had a significant increase from 1.78 mbpd in the preceding year to 2.06, 2.10 and 2.35 for the subsequent years of 2025, 2026 and 2027 be approved.”
On inflation, the Senate approved 15.75%, 14.21% and 10.04% as projections for 2025, 2026 and 2027 respectively.
Commenting on the MTEF and FSP documents, the majority senators hailed the projections but there were also reservations voiced out on the floor.
For instance, Sen. Adamu Aliero and a number of other senators held the view that N1,400 proposed as the 1USD exchange rate is unrealistic.
Aliero noted that even the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) used about N1,700 for its transactions, hence the N1,400 was not realistic.
Sen. Yahaya Abdullahi also called for caution saying, “Let us approve the projections with a pinch of salt. The Senate must have its eyes on the ball”, he told his colleagues.
Sen Orji Uzor Kalu suggested that one way to strengthen the Naira was to ban the use of the Dollar for domestic transactions.
“People must stop using dollars on the streets of Nigeria. We call for an executive bill stopping the use of dollars in Nigeria”, he said.
