March 28, 2024

EFCC recovers $354 million royalty outstanding from defaulting oil&gas company for NUPRC

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Oredola Adeola

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has announced the recovery of $354 million in royalty payments from an oil company operating in Nigeria. The amount was recovered on behalf of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) in November 2022.

The EFCC Chairman, Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa, made this known on Thursday in Abuja, while featuring in the 62nd session of the State House briefing organised by the Presidential Communication Team.

According to him, Bawa EFCC recovered the royalty which one of the oil companies refused to pay. He said that the Commission recorded some achievements in terms of indirect recoveries.

He said, “In November 2022, we recovered $354 million for Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) in terms of royalty that one of the oil companies has not paid; our investigation led to that recovery.

“For the recoveries, we are making for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for instance, between now and probably next week, we are going to transfer to them about N30 billion (about $30 million dollars).

“These are recoveries we have made for refusing to pay the three percent statutory payment to NDDC.

“And we have recovered billions of Naira from fraudulent contractual engagements that the NDDC has done over the years.

“You remember the forensic audit, the EFCC was given the mandate to carry out a criminal investigation in that regard,” he said.

The EFCC boss said that the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) mandated that all relevant agencies must open an account in Naira and foreign currencies.

He said that the Act further provided that all finally forfeited funds that belonged to the Federal Government should go into that account.

Bawa said that prior to POCA, such funds were paid into a designated Federal Government account.

“And we have to carry out an audit from our EFCC recovery account; and we paid into that account N120 billion and $29 million dollars, about 6.6 million Euros as well as about I.1 million pounds.

“The President has sanctioned that those monies should be utilised for the provision of critical infrastructure in this Country.

“So, the funds are going to be used for the completion of the Abuja-Kano expressway, as well as the second Niger Bridge and the Lagos-Ibadan expressway,” he assured.

EnergyDay’s check showed EFCC and Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), have jointly assisted the Federal Government with the recovery of N2.6trillion from taxes and royalties out of about $6.8billion from 26 oil and gas companies including International Oil Companies(IOCs) indicted for owing the Federal Government.

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