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Abuja, Nigeria (AFP) – state-owned oil giant Nigeria’s corruption ridden, NNPC, bankruptcy, because debts increased to hundreds of billions of Naira, the young minister of finance Remi Babalola said on Tuesday in Abuja.

“NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation) went bankrupt because of current liabilities exceed current assets amounted to 754 billion Naira (five billion dollars) as of December 31, 2008,” Babalola said at a meeting of state finance commissioner in Abujan, referring to the latest available account numbers, as quoted from the AFP.

The financial statements are often unaudited NNPC. Babalola, an accountant, told the meeting that the company wrote him a letter on Monday to explain that “NNPC is facing financial difficulties by, among others, the inability to pay for domestic crude oil when maturity and the delay in completing the import bill for fuel.

“The financial difficulties are basically derived from the imbalance between the costs with cash inflows,” Babalola said, quoting from the letter.

The minister said that in the same letter, NNPC said it was “not able to pay back 450 billion naira (3 billion dollars) debt to the Federation Account,” referring to the account made by all government agencies, including the payment of customs and port.

President Goodluck Jonathan, who has promised to tackle corruption, recently sacked several officials of the NNPC and ordered an audit “comprehensive” from the account made by a world-class auditing company. He also promised to reform the oil sector in order to efficiently and profitably. A law intended to reform the oil and gas sector, currently in parliament, is expected to specifically change the corruption that ride losses and inefficient NNPC to the purely commercial. Nigeria, despite the world’s eighth oil exporter, must import most of the refined petroleum products to meet local needs. Four oil refineries, with total installed capacity of 445 000 barrels per day, it is performing poorly because of corruption and poor maintenance.