The Director, Department of Petroleum Resources Mr Sarki Auwalu, says the department exceeded its revenue target by 36 per cent in 2014.

The Director, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Mr Sarki Auwalu, says the department exceeded its revenue target by 36 per cent in 2014. Auwalu made this known when he appeared before the House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee in Abuja on Thursday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that DPR was summoned by the committee over the report by the office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (AGF) on variance between the budget and actual revenue figures by revenue collecting agencies.

Auwalu said that between 2010 and 2014 the DPR had continued to exceed its target on revenue collections.
“The Department’s performance on revenue collection for the year 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 were over and above the target.

“It is important to note that from 2010 to 2015 we made 141, 170, 146, 129 and 135 per cent in revenue respectively.
“By this, in the year under review that is 2014, the DPR collected revenue over and above the budget by 36 per cent,” he said.
On underpayment of four per cent Cost of Collection (COC) to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) as submitted by the AGF, he said that the amount in question was paid in December 2015.

“An initial shortfall of N94.794 million being outstanding of cost of collection for the period November 2014 was recorded.
“However, the sum of N4.923 million and N60.458 million were paid on Dec. 23, and Dec. 30, 2014, respectively,” he said.
This, according to him, is a balance of N29.411 million observed by the auditor as underpayment of four per cent of COC in November 2014.
Giving a breakdown of the payments, he said that the outstanding N29.411 million was included in the payment of N2.549 billion being the four per cent of COC on total collection of N63.002 billion in Feb 2015.

In his remarks, the Chairman House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, Rep. Wole Oke, commended the DPR for the clarification saying, “We have no claim against you, this is very clear and straight forward.”