The House of Representatives‘Ad-hoc Committee on the recovery of outstanding N2.6 trillion debts owed the Federal Government by oil and gas firms, has demanded evidence of taxes, royalties and levies paid by the companies.

Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, who chaired the 18-member committee investigating the matter, gave the order yesterday in Abuja.

She called on the firms to make submissions and provide evidence of payments and outstanding from 2019.

Onyejeocha warned that failure to do this the committee would consider other legislative approaches to enforce compliance of its directives by the invited firms and the government agencies.

She urged the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) to furnish the payment records on fields from 2019 as well as the outstanding as at March 12.

She said the NUPRC was also to provide detailed information of crude oil production and lifting, gas production and utilisation and gas flare, including payment from 2019 till date.

Onyejeocha also asked the NNPC to provide details of $440 million waived to Nigeria Petroleum Development Companies as well as profile outstanding debt owed to NUPRC, FIRS and other government revenue collecting agencies.

She said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should also provide the bank statements of FIRS, NNPC, NUPRC for confirmation of receipts of outstanding liabilities.

She said the hearing was important, adding: “We are not too happy that we can’t make use of resources available to us.”

The hearing is based on the report of the National Extractive Industries Extractive Initiative (NEITI), that 77 oil and gas companies owe the Federal Government over N2.6 trillion.