According to reports, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited remitted N522.203 billion in oil proceeds to the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) in ten months.
The payments were made from January to November, with the exception of April, when there was no payment to the federation account.
The FAAC remittance is the revenue that NNPC Ltd receives from oil sales and pays into the FAAC, which is a pool of revenue from all Government Owned Enterprises (GOES).
The federal, state, and local governments then distribute the revenue on a monthly basis.
According to an analysis of NNPC Ltd’s remittances so far this year, the greatest revenue remitted to FAAC was N90.8 billion in January and N80 billion in August, while the lowest was N10.5 billion in November.
According to the breakdown of the remittance, NNPC remitted N90.860 billion in January, but this reduced to N64.161 billion in February, and then to N41.184 billion in March 2021.
In April, there was no remittance, which was believed to have gone toward subsidizing the fuel pump price per litre in order to keep it between the N162 to N165 price range.
By May, remittances to FAAC had dipped to N38.608 billion, but they had risen dramatically to N47.162 billion in June and N67.280 billion in July, before peaking at N80.030 billion in August.
The drop in remittances began again in September, when NNPC Ltd remitted N67.533 billion.
By October, it had dropped to N14.850 billion, and by November 2021, it had dropped to N10.536 billion.
This 10-month remittance resulted in a year-to-date FAAC remittance of N522.203 billion.
On a month-to-month basis, remittance in November 2020 which was N88.957bn was far higher than the N10bn recorded in November 2021. However, there was no record of petrol subsidy in 2020.
The NNPC November FAAC remittance report indicated that more money that is meant for the federation account went for subsidising petrol to ensure it remains within a price band of N162 and N165. At least NNPC Ltd spent N1.159 trillion on the subsidy within 10 months of this year (February to November) so far.
Without the subsidy payment, the federal government, 36 States and the 774 local governments would have had N1.681tr from oil proceeds to share but were left with just N522bn.
But the records showed that the N1.1tr subsidy payment was just one of the items of expenditure that NNPC Ltd had made, which reduced the money meant for FAAC. Its gross revenue as of November was N2.992tr out of which it deducted N2.470tr, leaving the N522bn as net remittance to FAAC. These deductions include N1.159tr subsidy or PMS under-recovery payment, N1tr tier one and tier two oil production expenses, N91.667bn refinery rehabilitation expenses, among other lesser deductions.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator and a recipient of the D9112 Superstar Icon Award, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
