By Our Reporter
The Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, the upstream subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, is yet to recover N2.9 trillion debts owed it as at the end of 2018, according to a report published by a research and data analytics firm, Dataphyte Nigeria.
The report obtained, weekend, however, did not state the debtors of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company. The report was presented at a webinar on understanding the 2018 Audit Report of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and its subsidiaries, by Chief Executive Officer of Dataphyte, Mr. Joshua Olufemi.
It also stated that the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, recorded impaired or bad debts of N925 billion in the year under review, while it queried the rationale for allowing the upstream arm of the NNPC to incur such huge receivables.
It further noted that the 2018 accounts of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company showed that the company owed the government roughly $5 billion in overdue taxes, royalties and asset sale fees.
According to the report, this amount represents most of what the government is currently looking to borrow to finance the budget shortfall.
The Dataphyte report bemoaned the woeful financial performance of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, while it further revealed that 17 of the 20 NNPC subsidiaries whose accounted were published, reported making profits for the year 2018, noting, however, that out of the 17, only five paid dividends to the NNPC.
The report listed the five dividend-paying subsidiaries as Duke Oil Panama, Duke Nigeria, Duke Global, Integrated Data Services Limited and Duke Oil Service UK.
The report identified the profitable companies that failed to pay dividends to the NNPC to include the NPDC, National Petroleum Investment Management Services, NAPIMS, National Engineering and Technical Company Limited, NETCO; Nigerian Gas Company Limited, NIDAS Marine Limited, NIDAS Shipping, NIDAS Shipping Services Limited, NIDAS Shipping Service Agency UK, NNPC Retail, Port Harcourt Refinery, Petroleum Product Marketing Company, PPMC; and Wheel Insurance Limited.
It also noted that Duke Oil Panama paid NNPC a dividend of only $40,419, despite making a pre-tax profit of $61.029 million.
“The Group Managing Director of the NNPC said Duke’s 2018 profits were ‘invested back into the business.’ However, he should tell what the money was spent on?” it queried.
The report further stated that most of the NNPC subsidiaries declared profit, but did not report payment of taxes to the relevant authorities, while it noted that NNPC and some of its subsidiaries sold trillions of naira worth of refined products into the Nigerian market each year, but the revenue from these sales were not reflected in any of the financials of the subsidiaries.
It said: “N2.57 trillion of petrol, kerosene and gas oil was sold in 2018 alone, according to the NNPC’s own published monthly reports. N76.13 billion of other Special Product including Low Pour Fuel Oil, were sold in 2018, also according to the NNPC’s own published monthly reports. Most of this money does not appear as revenue in any of the subsidiary accounts NNPC published.
“The NNPC did not tell which of its entities received the money from domestic refined product sales, and we ask if the NNPC would be publishing accounts showing what happened to those revenues in 2018?”
In addition, the report maintained that the NNPC did not publish the accounts of its other subsidiaries, such as Calson (Bermuda) Limited, Hyson (Nigeria) Limited, Nikorma Transport Limited, Napoli Limited, West Africa Gas Limited, and West African Gas Pipeline Company Limited; while it asked if the NNPC would eventually release their results.
Source: Today.ng
