President Muhammadu Buhari (Minister of Petroleum Resources), has been accused of withholding billions of dollars in oil sale revenues from the treasury without effective rules or oversight. This is according to a latest report released on Wednesday, March 30, by the Natural Resource Governance Institute, NGRI, an international non-profit policy institute.

The report also stated that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, under the watchful eyes of President Buhari retained 66% of proceeds from 3 types of sales in 2015.

A practice which the institute maintained was the tradition under the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke. Subtly alluding to the fact that the said amount withheld by the NNPC under President Buhari’s administration, only paints former President, Goodluck Jonathan as a saint.

“Under the Buhari administration, NNPC continues to withhold billions of dollars in oil sale revenues from the treasury without effective rules or oversight.” The institute stated.

“NNPC therefore retained 66 percent of proceeds from these three types of sales. This was 12 percent higher than the withholdings under Goodluck Jonathan in 2013 and 2014.

“Some of NNPC’s withholdings cover known costs, notably its share of joint venture operating expenses. The corporation has not fully explained others, especially revenues retained from domestic crude and NPDC sales.

“NNPC spending on this scale raises questions about fiscal responsibility, especially at a time when public finances are stretched and the federal government is looking to fund more of its budget with debt.

“Recent announcements on NNPC reforms and the latest drafts of the Petroleum Industry Bill do not adequately address how NNPC and the state will share revenues in future.”

With this latest report, many Nigerians have expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the President Buhari-led government has decided to soil its name by not following laid down auditing rules and procedures.

Others have alluded to the fact that if the reforms being put in place by the former Minister of Petroleum Resources were followed through, such sharp practices would not have happened.

Recommending probable solutions to the president, NRGI said, “clarifying the financial relationship between NNPC and the state may be the single most important component of the Buhari administration’s oil sector reform campaign”.

The report further recommends that a “longstanding misalignment” between the NNPC Act of 1977 and the 1999 constitution, “leaves this money in legal limbo”.

NRGI seeks that, “the government should put in place a clear, legally enforceable rule governing which revenues NNPC can keep”.

It added, “In the second half of 2015, NNPC sales of export crude, so called domestic crude and oil from its subsidiary NPDC, totaled $6.3 billion. Of this amount, only $2.1 billion entered the Federation Account.