‘Buhari will release full audit on NNPC’

Nigerian president-elect Muhammadu Buhari’s administration will publish the full audit of the state oil company and expects it will need to repay the government more than previously recommended, his party’s policy director said.

Buhari’s All Progressives Congress believes the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. may need to refund more than the $1.48 billion stated in the highlights of a PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP report released by the auditor-general in February, policy director Kayode Fayemi said Tuesday in an interview at his residence in Lagos, the commercial capital. Ohi Alegbe, a NNPC spokesman in the capital, Abuja, declined to comment.

“I have a figure that’s more than $1.5 billion that’s been talked about,” said Fayemi, a former governor of Ekiti state. “We’ve seen credible information that what PwC says is more than that. We will release the report. We’ll make it available to Nigerians as soon as we have full information on this.”

Former central bank Governor Lamido Sanusi was suspended by President Goodluck Jonathan last year after he alleged the NNPC hadn’t turned over about $20 billion of oil revenue to the government, which earns two-thirds of its revenue from the commodity. Sanusi, now the Emir of Kano, the West African nation’s second-highest Muslim leader, said last month that the issue wasn’t addressed sufficiently.

The oil company said the PwC report, which Jonathan’s government hasn’t published in full, absolved it of Sanusi’s allegations. It has started to refund the $1.48 billion, Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke told reporters on Wednesday.