FRC Urged to Conduct Forensic Audit on NNPC

Obinna Chima

The new President of the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), Mr. Anthony Nzom has called on the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC) to conduct a forensic audit on activities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

Nzom, who was reacting to allegations and counter allegations over what he described as “the so-called missing money,” made the suggestion in a statement at the weekend.

According to him, if the federal government feels there is any neutral body that should come in, it should be the FRC, who will go to ANAN and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and ask for the experts in forensic accounting.

Nzom said that both bodies –ANAN and ICAN, have members who are good in forensic accounting.

“It was said that the then Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, came out with three different figures on the issue. That means he was not sure. By giving three different figures on the so-called missing oil money, he was not sure. This led to the controversy. Firstly, he said $49 billion, he brought it down to $12 billion, and finally took it up to $20 billion,’’ the new ANAN president said.

He said: “What we expect of him on that issue was to call for reconciliation between the CBN and the NNPC. Many things in the Accounting profession are always based on reconciliation like stock reconciliation or bank reconciliation. Sometimes, you discover that at the end of the day, nothing was missing.’’

He noted that PriceWaterhouse Coopers is a member of ICAN.

“We (ANAN) are of the opinion that ICAN and IFAC cannot be involved in the forensic auditing which the Senator-Elect, Adeola Olamilekan was talking about. Each time we talk about forensic, people do not know what forensic is all about.’’