Former National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) Group General Manager Bala Wunti has stated that there is no evidence in the 2023 audited financial statements of Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited to support claims that ₦210 trillion is missing from the company’s accounts.
Wunti made the clarification while appearing before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, chaired by Senator Ibrahim Dankwambo, during its review of NNPC’s 2023 audited accounts. He said the NNPC Audit Review showed that the disputed figure resulted from a misunderstanding of accounting entries rather than missing funds.
According to Wunti, the ₦210 trillion figure was wrongly calculated by combining ₦107 trillion in sundry receivables, which represent money owed to NNPC, with about ₦103 trillion in accrued expenses, which represent the company’s liabilities.
“Receivables are money other people owe you, while accrued expenses are money you owe other people,” he said.
“Accounting standards require that these items be reported separately. They cannot simply be added together and described as missing money.”
Wunti explained that NNPC’s financial reporting is more complex than that of a typical commercial company because it operates as a business, manages petroleum assets on behalf of the federation and performs strategic functions linked to Nigeria’s energy security. He also maintained that there were no reported cases of fraud or missing funds during his time leading NAPIMS and later NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services (NUIS).
The former NAPIMS boss also rejected reports that ₦5.8 billion was spent on incorporating NNPC after the implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). He said the actual statutory payments to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) totalled about ₦2.45 billion, with the higher figure resulting from accounting entries recorded in different books.
Senator Dankwambo said the committee had not found evidence that any money was missing from NNPC’s accounts. He explained that the NNPC Audit Review is intended to improve transparency and ensure a proper understanding of the company’s audited financial statements. The committee will continue examining the submissions before deciding whether further clarification is required.
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