NNPCL in a letter dated June 25, however, requested a two-month extension to prepare necessary documents and responses.
By Kehinde Okeowo
Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has justified the inability of the management of the state-owned oil firm to appear before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts on Thursday, June 26, after it summoned the company over the N210 trillion missing funds in its audited financial statement spanning from 2017 to 2023.
In a letter written by NNPCL’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Dapo Segun and read by the committee’s Chairman, Aliyu Wadada, the company said it was unable to honour the invitation because it had a managerial retreat on the same day it was asked to appear.
The CFO in the letter dated June 25, went on to request a two-month extension to prepare necessary documents and responses to queries raised by the committee.
“Having carefully reviewed your request, we hereby request your kind consideration to reschedule the engagement for a period of two months from now to enable us to collate the requested information and documentation,” the letter partly read.
However, no officials or external auditors from NNPCL showed up in the Red Chamber.
Consequently, the committee issued a 10-day ultimatum, demanding that NNPCL top executives appear before the panel by July 10 or face constitutional sanctions.
The lawmakers further rejected the request for a two-month extension by Segun.
Speaking, the Chairman of the Senate Public Accounts Committee, Wadada, said it was unacceptable for a company like NNPCL to request two months to respond to questions from its own audited statements.
“For an institution like NNPCL to ask for two months to respond to questions from its own audited records is unacceptable,” Wadada stated.
