The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority has come under fresh scrutiny after the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation uncovered over N432bn in unpaid debts, statutory levies, and other outstanding obligations involving petroleum marketers.
The bulk of the liabilities, N431.01bn, consisted of legacy National Transport Average and bridging allowance debts owed to the petroleum sector regulator by marketers, according to the recently released Auditor-General’s 2024 Annual Report on Non-Compliance and Internal Control Weaknesses in Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.
The report obtained from the OAGF office and analyzed by our correspondent on Monday disclosed that federal government ministries, departments, and agencies were linked to at least N1.39tn in recurring financial irregularities, control failures, and breaches of public finance regulations in 2024.
The amount, representing the cumulative value of 30 monetary cross-cutting issues identified by the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation, underscores the scale of recurring weaknesses in the management of public funds across government institutions.
The largest component of the audit queries was N882.75bn in unrecovered debts involving six MDAs, accounting for about 63 percent of the total amount implicated in the cross-cutting issues.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria accounted for the largest portion of the unrecovered debts, with N446.70bn, according to the report. The Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, recorded the least amount among the affected agencies, with N935.56m.
For the NMDPRA, the report showed that the massive outstanding debt had remained substantially unresolved years after it was incurred, with auditors stating that as of August 2025, there was no evidence that the position had changed.
The N431.01bn debt dwarfed other financial irregularities identified at the authority, including N1.06bn in outstanding statutory levies owed by 14 oil marketers and N217.84m in unremitted Industrial Training Fund contributions.
An analysis of the audit findings showed that the N431.01bn legacy debt accounted for virtually all the N432.29bn in major outstanding financial issues identified in the sections of the report relating to the NMDPRA.
The Auditor-General said the N431.01bn represented accumulated indebtedness arising from the National Transport Average, bridging allowance, and legacy obligations.
A breakdown of the debt showed that the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria accounted for N315.18bn, comprising N132.56bn in bridging allowance debt and N182.62bn in National Transport Average obligations.
The Major Energy Marketers Association of Nigeria accounted for another N106.30bn, while N9.53bn represented an unissued legacy debt in promissory notes by the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The report stated, “Section 47(1) of the Petroleum Industry Act (2021) states, ‘The Authority shall maintain a Fund (in this Act referred to as ‘the Authority Fund’) into which money accruing to the Commission shall be paid.'” The audit observed that: i. The sum of N431,012,935,018.88 was the National Transport Average, legacy debt, and bridging allowance indebtedness to NMDPRA as of May 2023.”
It added that, “As of the time of this audit in August 2025, nothing came to the knowledge of the auditors to have changed the position of the amount of the indebtedness, and there was no justification provided for non-recovery of the third parties’ indebtedness to the Authority.”
