Top management staff of Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), were under fire in the Senate yesterday over remittance of N44.5 billion into the Consolidated Revenue Fund in 2019 out of N2.4 trillion generated.
This is even as heads of many of the other revenue generating agencies invited by the Senate’s joint committee on Finance and Planning for interactive sessions on their 2021 revenues projections refused to appear on alleged grounds of indisposition and hospitalisation.
Trouble came the way of DPR during the interactive session when the joint committee led by Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (APC Lagos West), demanded for records of the agency’s internally generated revenues in 2019 and projections for 2021.
The Head of Planning of the agency, Mr. Johnson Ajewole, who first spoke in the absence of the director, Sarki Auwalu, said a total of N2.4trillion was generated by DPR in 2019, but N44 5billion was remitted into the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Irked by the wide gap in what was realised and remitted, the committee members described his submission as unacceptable.Efforts made by the Head of Finance and Accounts of the Petroleum agency, Mrs. Lilian Ufondu, to explain the wide gap in revenues and remittance further angered the committee members.
According to her, out of the N2.4trillion generated by DPR in 2019, N88billion was removed as 4 per cent collection fee, out of which N5.72billion was also remitted while the balance was used for overhead.
Persistent questions fired at her by the Committee chairman and members on 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.
She added that as at July this year, DPR has generated N1.13trillion and projecting N3.4trillion as revenues generation for 2021 out which N139 billion will be taken out as 4 per cent collection fee.
Angered by the submissions and alleged disjointed records presentations, the committee, ordered the agency to reappear before it unfailingly on Tuesday next week and must it be led by its Director, Sarki Auwalu, alleged to have traveled abroad. The committee chairman said: “Information and records presented to us by both directors or 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”
Efforts made by journalists to make the troubled agency’s head of Finance and Accounts, Lilian Ufondu, explain her inability and that of her counterpart on Planning, Johnson Ajewole, to make satisfactory submissions before the committee, proved abortive, as she continued to lament that the day was a bad one for her and DPR.
