By Adeleye Kunle
From January to June 2022, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) deposited a total of $2.7 billion into its accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The NNPC’s remittances to the CBN were revealed in a document discovered in Abuja on Sunday.
Contrary to CBN claims that the weakening of the naira was caused by NNPC’s failure to remit funds into Nigeria’s foreign reserves, the document stated that $645 million of the $2.7 billion remitted by the oil firm into its CBN accounts was for dividends paid by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited.
It went on to say that $1.786 billion came from the national oil company’s operational activities, which had recently been converted into a limited liability company.
In response to the collapse in the value of the naira against the US dollar, the apex bank stated that the non-remittance of dollars by NNPC precipitated the forex crisis.
The apex bank reportedly stated in a report titled “The forex question in Nigeria: Fact sheet” that there had been “zero-dollar remittance to the country’s foreign reserve by the NNPC.”
However, a document seen in Abuja on Sunday claimed otherwise, claiming that the NNPC remitted $2.7 billion to the CBN in the first six months of this year.
According to a breakdown of NNPC remittances, funds into the oil firm’s CBN accounts included $18,770,418.97 in January, $194, 563, 276.49 in February, and $373, 232,875.20 in March.
Other payments included $247,884,295.52 in April 2022, $591,565,425.41 in May, and $880,906,761.81 in June 2022.
This article first appeared on Track News.
