ABUJA, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Nigeria's Senate launched aninvestigation on Wednesday into a letter written by the centralbank (CBN) which said that the state-oil firm NNPC failed to pay$50 billion of revenue from oil sales into government accounts.
NNPC earned $65.3 billion from crude oil sales betweenJanuary 2012 and July 2013 but only remitted 24 percent of thisto the government's account and $49.8 billion was stilloutstanding, according to a letter from the CBN Governor LamidoSanusi to President Goodluck Jonathan seen by Reuters.
NNPC sold 46 percent of Nigeria's oil in the 18-month periodbut its remittance amounted to only one-third of the taxes paidby private oil companies, like Royal Dutch Shell andExxon Mobil, which exported the other 54 percent, theletter claimed.
NNPC says the CBN has misunderstood the figures.
"The matter will be investigated by the Senate financecommittee headed by Ahmed Markafi and (it is) to report back asquickly as possible but certainly not more than one week,"Senate President David Mark said.
NNPC has been criticised for lacking transparency and fordiverting funds in several investigations in recent years butthe central bank governor appears to be one of the mosthigh-profile figures to have brought up the issue with Jonathan.
OPEC-member Nigeria is Africa's second largest economy andtop oil producer, pumping around 2-2.5 million barrels per day.Oil revenues make up 80 percent of government revenues.
