By Daily Trust
The Petroleum Equalization Fund management has refused to comply with the request of the House of Representatives to return N27 billion to the Federation Account, arguing that such money was not for that Account.
On Tuesday, the Rep Solomon Adeola-led House of Representatives Public Account Committee ordered the management board of PEF to refund N27,051,618,579 billion to the Federation Account within three months, being 80 per cent of the operating surpluses of the fund for the period of five years.
But the board told Daily Trust that the legislators misunderstood the operations of PEF by asking them to return the money.
The management board through its spokesperson, Goddy Nnadi, said PEF did not have such money in its custody as any money that hit its accounts was ready to be disbursed to marketers who submitted their claims.
He said: “The operation of the fund is not like the way budget system operates, because these monies are not there permanently. When they ask us to give them our financial records, we took our cash balance to them, at that time we had such money but we (have) disbursed them now, while some were processed.”
According to Nnadi, PEF reporting system is based on cash balance. “It depends on how much we have at a particular time; but remember that as it comes in, many other marketers sent in their claims for reimbursement.”
“Currently, there are over N20 billion unprocessed claims sent by marketers waiting for monies to come, Nnadi said, adding, “we told them the money doesn’t come from the budget, it is contributory from petroleum users.”
He said going by their (Reps) request, the country will be thrown into chaos because “the owners of these monies, the petroleum marketers and transport owners will downtools and you will see fuel queues everywhere.”
Adeola had asked that PEF’s board to within one week furnish the committee with documents detailing the fund’s operations.
