Missing N165bRevenue: Suspended NPA Boss Denies Deficit

Following the letter from the Federal Ministry of Transportation to probe the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) on the allegedly missing N165.32billion, which ought to have been remitted to the Consolidated Revenue Funds (CRF), the suspended Managing Director NPA, Hadiza Bala-Usman has written to the President’s Chief of Staff denying the allegations.

In her letter which was dated May 5, 2021, Bala-Usman said that the said amount was presented by the Budget Office of the Federation for the years under investigation on which the Ports actual remittances were short of the projected estimate revenue. She therefore stated that the N165.32billion was the budgetary expectations from the Authority which was not the same as the actual revenue generated.

Bala-Usman said that the remittances of the audited financial statements of the Ports for the period of 2017 and 2018 provided an operating surplus of N76.782billion and N 71.480billion as opposed to the N133.084 and N88.79billion projected by the Budget Office.

She said that in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, the Operating Surplus of the Authority stands at N51.09billion and N42.51billion for 2017 and 2018 respectively adding that the said amount would culminated in the amount due the CRF in the sum of N40.87billion and N34.065billion representing 80% of the projected surpluses for the year 2017 and 2018 respectively.

The letter further stated that the remittances for the years under probe are as follows;

“The Authority consequently made a remittance of N42.415billion and N33.969billion for the years 2017 and 2018 respectively for the amount required as remittances for the period (attached herewith are the Treasury receipts).

“Based on the above, we wish to clarify the following: (1) The Authority’s Computation of its remittances for the CRF are concluded arising from numbers from the Audited Financial Statements using the template forwarded to the Authority from the Fiscal Responsibility Commission.

“That the Authority remitted the full amount due CRF for the periods of 2017 and 2018 arising from the Operating Surplus derived from the Audited Financial Statement for the period totaling N76.384billion as evidenced in attached treasury receipts.

“That the Authority has remitted a total of N82.687 billion for the period 2019 and 2020 pending the audit of the financial statement at which point the amount so computed arising from the value of the Operating Surplus in the audited financial statement will be remitted to the CRF”, the letter read.

She also requested that the Chief of Staff to the President retrieve the documents aforementioned from the Accountant General of the Federation to substantiate her claims and ascertain the Authorities remittances to the CRF.