Goli Innocent 
Forty-eight oil companies including the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) are currently owing the Nigerian Government $8.265 billion in unremitted revenues.
This was contained in an audit revealed report by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
NEITI in its 2021 Oil and Gas Industry Audit report disclosed that the amount was collectible revenue due to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), is made up of $1.342 billion owed by 47 oil companies and $6.923 billion owed by NNPC Limited.
The report revealed that the total revenue to the Federation from the oil and gas industry in 2021 was $23.046 billion but only $13.2 billion or 57.3 percent was remitted to the government.
A breakdown of the revenue receipts showed that revenue not remitted by State Owned Enterprise was $1.951 billion, Quasi-fiscal expenditure by State Owned Enterprise was $6.931 billion, Sub-national payments ( Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, and Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB) $963.6 million, and remittances to Federation $13.2 billion.
The audit also revealed that total oil production in 2021 was 566.12 million barrels with Production Sharing Contracts, PSC, 242.9 million barrels or 42.9 percent of the production. Joint Ventures contributed 225 million barrels or 39.7 percent.
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The report also highlighted a decrease in crude oil losses to theft and sabotage from 39.08 million barrels in 2020 to 37.57 million barrels in 2021.
“This decline is attributed to reduced crude oil production in that period, affecting 29 companies”, it stated.
On subsidy payments for premium motor spirit, and petrol, in 2021, the audit disclosed that it amounted to N1.159 trillion with the highest amount recorded in the month of September, N173 billion.
The report added that between 2006 and 2021, payments for petrol subsidies amounted to N8.149 trillion.
Presenting the report to the public in Abuja, the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji said the audit covered a total of 69 companies out of which 22 fell within the criteria for reconciliations “and their payments represented 95.6 percent of the total payment by companies which amounted to $11.33 billion”.
Dr. Orji said a total of 12 government agencies were covered including NNPC Limited.
He explained that the “report reviewed processes that characterized all transactions within the sector. It looked at an independent assessment of financial transactions in the areas of revenue receipts and payments and how the processes weighed on the scale of transparency and accountability in the oil and gas sector during the period under review.
“Other areas that NEITI focused on in this report were on investments made by the Federation or the Federal Government in the oil and gas industries, subsidy payments, company remittances, and liabilities in terms of unremitted funds due to the Federal Government or the Federation”.