Reginald Stanley, Executive Secretary, PPPRA
The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, has cleared the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, over the non-remittance of the sum of N4.423 billion to the federation account.

At the end of a reconciliatory meeting between NEITI and the PPPRA over the recently released 2009-2011 industry audit in the oil and gas sector, a joint statement issued said that the dispute over the missing funds has been reconciled and traced to the Petroleum Support Fund, PSF, account domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.

The statement which was signed by Zainab Ahmed, executive secretary, NEITI and Reginald Stanley, executive secretary, PPPRA, said “there is nothing outstanding against PPPRA on the said amount”.

It added that the meeting evolved strategies for both NEITI and PPPRA to address other issues arising from the report, using the platform of Inter-Ministerial Task Team, IMTT, set up by PresidentGoodluck Jonathan.

“The meeting also resolved to ensure effective communication network between the two Agencies for effective Inter-Agency cooperation in pursuit of their mandates,” the statement added.

NEITI had accused the PPPRA of failing to account for the N4.423 billion recovered from 10 oil marketers as over-payments between 2008 and 2009 in its audit report and challenged it to show evidence of such remittance.

NEITI’s director of communications, Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, had stressed that there was no evidence that the recovered fund was remitted into the federation account.

However, the PPPRA in its response, accused NEITI of “confusing” the public with its audit report, adding that NEITI appeared to have embarked on a wild-goose chase instead of addressing the issues at stake.