Head of Transparency International (TI) Nigeria and Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Comrade Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, has thrown his support behind calls for a full-scale investigation into the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC).
Speaking during a Media chat at the sidelines of the Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, Rafsanjani said a thorough probe of the NNPC’s operations is critical to promoting transparency, enhancing accountability, and ensuring that revenues from the oil sector are properly managed for the benefit of Nigerians.
It is a welcome development to have an audit of NNPC,” Rafsanjani stated. “However, we are advocating not just for a financial audit, but also for physical and process audits.
“Only a comprehensive, multi-layered review can uncover systemic weaknesses and chart a course for genuine reform and revitalisation of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.”
Rafsanjani who emphasized that the audit must go beyond finances to cover all key aspects of NNPL’s operations, explained that while financial audits assess records and transactions to ensure compliance with regulatory standards and verify the accuracy of reports submitted to bodies like the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), physical audits verify the existence and state of assets such as pipelines and oil wells.
Process audits, on the other hand, examine internal controls and operational procedures to ensure efficiency, transparency, and adherence to global standards.
