Senate probes DPR over N44.5bn remittance out of N2.4trn generated

• As heads of agencies failed to appear over illness

The Senate Joint Committee on Finance and Planning on Friday grilled officials of Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) over the meager remittance of N44.5billion into the Consolidated Revenue Fund in 2019 out of N2.4 trillion generated.

The hearing was however, stalled  by alleged illnesses the appearance of heads of many of the other revenue generating agencies before the Senate Joint Committee on Finance and Planning during interactive sessions on their 2021 revenues projections.

The demand by the joint committee led by Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (APC Lagos West), for records of the DPR’s internally generated revenues in 2019 and projections for 2021, initiated trouble for the agency during the interactive session.

The Head of Planning of the DPR, Mr Johnson Ajewole, who first spoke in the absence of the Director, Engr Sarki Auwalu, said a total of N2.4trillion was generated by DPR in 2019 but N44.5billion was remitted into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

The committee members frowned over this development, adding that the submission was not acceptable.

All the efforts made by the Head of Finance and Accounts of the Petroleum agency, Mrs Lilian Ufondu, to clarify the wide gap in revenues and remittance, further drew the irk of the committee members the more.

Ufondu explained that out of the N2.4trillion generated by DPR in 2019, N88billion was removed as four per cent collection fee, of which N5.72billion was also remitted while the balance was used for overhead.

The Chairman and members of the Committee persistent questions as to what happened to the over N2trillion balance, were not satisfactorily answered as she was only able to mention overhead and operational costs without specific figures tied to them.

Ufondu added that as at July this year, DPR has generated N1.13trillion and projecting N3.4trillion as revenues generation for 2021 out which N139billion will be taken out as four per cent collection fee.

The Committee was not satisfied with her submission and ordered that the agency must reappear before it unfailingly on Tuesday next week and must be led by its Director, Sarki Auwalu, who is alleged to have traveled abroad.

The committee chairman said: “Information and records presented to us by both Directors and heads of departments that have spoken are not clear and insufficient as regards budget performance of DPR within the last three years and revenue projection for 2021.

“For this committee to do proper and thorough job, comprehensive records of such budget performances must be made available latest by Monday next week, upon which your Director and other top management staff, will appear before us again on Tuesday next week.

“Also, well detailed proposals for revenues generation by the agency for 2021-2022 must be included in the expected comprehensive records.”

All efforts made by journalists to make the troubled agency’s head of Finance and Accounts, Lilian Ufondu, explain her inability and that of her colleague on Planning, Johnson Ajewole, to make satisfactory submissions before the committee, proved abortive, as she bemoaned that the day was a bad one for her and DPR.

“I’m sad and is a bad day for us. We are told to come back and we shall return on Tuesday next week,” Ufondu said.

Aside DPR, heads of other agencies like Nigeria Inland Waterways (NIWA), Bank of Industry (BOI) and Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON), were also not present for the interactive session and were ordered by the committee to reappear on Monday.

The Committee was informed that NIWA’s boss was said to have traveled abroad, while those of BOI and SON, were alleged to either be indisposed or hospitalized.