NNPCL, NAPIMS External Auditors tackle Senate Committee over appearance

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By Our Correspondent

External Auditors to the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited ( NNPCL) and National Petroleum Investment Management Services ( NAPIMS) on Tuesday tackled the Senate Committee on Public Accounts over their appearance before it.

The Senate Public Accounts Committee (SPAC), had on the strength of queries raised in audit reports of the affected agencies before 2023 invited their external auditors to appear before it.

However, the external auditors through a letter from their solicitor , Afe Babalola & Co, informed the committee that issues relating to the audit reports are already litigated against by aggrieved parties and will be subjudice for them to appear before the committee .

Not satisfied with the reason given by the external auditors, the Committee, in a counter letter dated 15th May, 2025, ordered the external auditors to appear before it on Tuesday, 20th May, 2025 unfailingly.

The committee in the letter titled: “Re: Special Legislative Inquiry on the External Auditors to NNPCL and NAPIMS” among others, told the external auditors that the scope of its work goes beyond the case before the court.

“That the Committee still stands on not being a party to any case that is between the External Auditors or the Court and cannot be sub-judice.

“That the external auditors have a duty of full disclosure of the claim in court, by furnishing the Committee of the Court process, so as to determine the involvement of the National Assembly or the Senate to the case on the subject of sub-jucice.

“Arising from the foregoing, the External Auditors to NNPCL and NAPIMS are advised to honour the appointment of 20th May, 2025 as earlier acknowledged, else the Committee would explore its Power to compel attendance”.

See also  Dangote Refinery makes case for 100% Nigerian crude …as Senate probes alleged sabotage in petroleum industry By Our Correspondent The Dangote Refinery has made passionate appeal to the Senate, NNPCL, NUPRC, NDMPRA and other stakeholders in the industry to help supply the refinery its crude oil need 100 per cent from Nigeria. Group Strategy Officer, Dangote Refinery, Aliyu Suleiman made the appeal at the Senate Ad-hoc Committee probing alleged economic sabotage in petroleum industry at the Senate Complex, Abuja on Wednesday. He said right now, the refinery bought about 50 million barrels of crude out of which about 60% comes from NNPC. Mr. Suleiman who expressed gratitude to NNPC for their support, added that, essentially, all they are asking is for them to get their crude requirement from Nigeria 100%. “Let's be very clear, we are happy to pay fair prices. We hope that we'll work with the regulator and we'll get their support so that the refinery can get 100% of its crude from Nigeria and buy the crude from companies that produce it in Nigeria not from international middlemen. “We count on support of the committee, the regulators and other stakeholders to ensure that the refinery succeeds, because if it does, aside from the other obvious benefits, like forex generation, job creation and the rest, most importantly, there is the psychological benefit of making, giving Nigerians, Africa in general, the confidence that we can succeed. Giving a progress update on the refinery, Mr. Suleiman said since the refinery started full trial production in January and then full time production started in March, we processed about 50 million barrels of crude. “We have produced about five million tons of petroleum products. And these petroleum products have been sold to various parts of the country and Jet oil has been sold in Europe since May. He said other products have been sent to places as far as Asia, US, Brazil, and so on. So the refinery has been making a lot of progress. He emphasized the importance of deliberately protecting local industries for the over all economic development of the country. According to him, “the US, for example, has done that, to protect their own industries against attack by China that subsidize their own industries and then sends them to the US. So that's the first question. We want to urge the committee to consider if we deserve protection against them”. He posed three basic questions that revolved around protection of local industries for the consideration of the committee and Nigerians at large. The questions are: “Do local refineries deserve protection from NUPRC? “Should Nigeria protect its infant industries in order to improve investment? “Should local refineries have preferential access to Nigerian crude? He said Dangote found itself competing against Russian products that were produced with oil that is valued at $60. “We all know that because of the cap that has been put Russian oil, the value of Russian oil today in the market is $60. And that's what Russia is using to produce their products and those products are being sent in large quantities into Africa to compete with products that are produced in refineries that buy crude at $90. “We don't think this will be a fair competitive environment and I think that when you have such unfair competition, it is normal to put protective measures. “I think even in the animal world, the moment a new baby is born, they don't just go and leave it out in the wild. “What we want is to sell more of our products in Nigeria, because we believe we can do that, we can compete. And even though there are concerns that have been expressed around monopoly, that is a problem that has been identified. The right thing to do is to say, how do we address this problem? If monopoly is a risk, how do we address this risk while at the same time ensuring that we protect our domestic industries? The good thing is that in the PIA, there are provisions around that, you can monitor and take action if you feel there's monopoly.

However at the session on Tuesday, none of the external auditors appeared before the committee but were represented by one of their solicitors, Oyetola Muyiwa Atoyebi ( SAN) who was not allowed to make any submission.

Atoyebi who later spoke to journalists, said the external auditors couldn’t appear before the committee it would be subjudice to do so.

“The committee had earlier been informed that the external auditors would not appear before it because issues to be deliberated upon are already in court and would amount to subjudice on their part to make any submissions on them.

“It is even subjudice for the committee itself to be holding session on issues being litigated against in the court of law”, he said.

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