Expdonaloaded News; FG hires KPMG, PWC to audit NNPC, CBN, others

The Presidential Committee probing the Excess Crude Account (ECA) has engaged two financial auditing firms to audit the accounts of all revenue generating agencies from 2012 to 2015. The auditing firms are PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) and the KPMG, both on the world’s top list of professional auditing firms.

The National Economic Council (NEC)  had at its maiden meeting set up a four-man committee, made up of the Governors of Edo, Akwa Ibom, Gombe and Kaduna, to screen the books of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as regards remittances and the operations of ECA as well the Federation Account during the period. At the committee’s first parley in Abuja last week, Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode was co-opted into the committee.
At yesterday’s meeting ‎held at the Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja, the committee extended the probe to other revenue generating agencies, inviting them to appear and answer questions on their expenditures.
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Department o Petroleum Resources (DPR), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) Nigerian  Customs Service, the Ministry of Finance, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation among others, appeared before the probe panel to account for the financial activities.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole, said it is no longer business as usual, adding that the first probe was only restricted to NNPC, but will now also cover all the subsidiaries under it. The first probe by the PWC, he said, was an unfinished business.
This investigation, he said, “will now cover value for expenses” as the affected agencies will be made to account for things expended on at their correct values.
“This is about making Nigeria work for the benefit of other Nigerians and we have to bear in mind that governments are not run on the basis of collection of crude oil, but government regardless of colour or political affiliation is run on race and so if you have tax generating agencies that are not remitting taxes ,government cannot run like that. “So, in the long run, Nigeria has to live on taxes”, he said.