In a bid to block revenue leakages, the House of Representatives has directed its Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) to investigate the operations of Joint Venture (JV) agreements between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its partners and ascertain the level of income from all JV operations in the past six years through forensic review of the operations of JVs.
This is just as the lawmakers, worried over the adverse security implication, has urged the Federal Ministry of Communications and the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) to direct all telecommunications service providers in the country to ensure that all local calls initiated under the cover of hidden numbers are barred.
Moving the motion for the investigation, Rep Ossai Ossai expressed concern that income from sale of assets, marine transportation, hullage or pipeline transportation which formed part of the JV Operations were unaccounted for.
“These sources of the Joint Venture? income amounted to billions of naira or dollars, particularly ullage or pipeline transportation as the case may be,” he said.
According to him, the operator firms often connive with NNPC officials to net these income against expenses already settled to avoid remittance to the federation account.