Unic Press UK: The upper chamber of Nigeria’s bicameral legislative body, the Nigerian Senate would investigate the state oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over unauthorized withdrawal of $1.05 billion from the Nigeria LNG account.
The Senate made the decision following a matter presented at plenary Tuesday by Senator Bassey Akpan (PDP – Akwa Ibom North-East), who made a reference to complaints by Nigerians over the unauthorized withdrawal of billions of dollars by NNPC from the NLNG account.
The issue of unauthorized withdrawal came to the fore Monday when Premium Times newspapers, Nigeria, published a report, saying:
“. . . the federal government illegally diverted $1.05 billion (₦378 billion at ₦360 to a dollar) sourced from the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) dividend funds to secretly fund subsidy payment on petroleum products. The diversion details are coming amidst revelations from accusations the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has a $3.5 billion subsidy fund it is spending without appropriation by the National Assembly.”
In its report, the Premium Times newspaper added that the withdrawal of billions of dollars were carried out without regard to constitutional provision and without consultation with state governments’ and the lawmakers’.
