The House of Representatives has mandated its committee on finance (when constituted) to investigate the alleged non-remittance of two trillion and other due taxes by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) into the federation account.
This followed the adoption of a motion, ‘Need to investigate the non–remittance of due taxes by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited into the Federation Account’, moved by Uduak Odudo during plenary on Tuesday.
Odudo said the NNPCL had averred that the Federal Government owed it over N4trn of subsidy payments, power debt and other sundry charges and therefore would not remit until the debts were recovered.
He said the non-remittance accusation and counter-accusation were tantamount to a calculated attempt to disrespect and downplay the collective intelligence of Nigerians.
He also noted that the said “Federation Account” belonged to the entire federation with the federal government tasked with keeping same in trust for the three tiers of government.
According to Odudo, the allocation of revenue prescribed the basis for the distribution of revenue accruing to the federation account between the federal, state and local government areas in Nigeria.
“The fate of the national development largely depends on how transparent and accountable relevant government agencies and corporate entities are in the collation, remittance and distribution of revenues solely acquired,” the lawmaker said.
“Section 6 of the Allocation of Revenue (Federation Account, etc) Act, established the Federation Account Allocation Committee to among other functions, report annually to the National Assembly in respect of the function under the Act,” he said.
