The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is Nigeria’s state-owned oil company, overseeing activities in the country’s oil sector in terms of operations. Some stakeholders believe that the corporation has not been transparent enough in its operations, an allegation that the state-owned oil company has consistently denied.
To buttress the fact that NNPC is a transparent public company, Mallam Umar Ajinya, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) recently spoke with energy correspondents in Lagos, while representing the Group Managing Director (GMD), Mele Kolo Kyari, at the National Association of Energy Correspondents (NAEC) annual conference and awards.
According to the NNPC’s CFO, contrary to public perception, the corporation is committed to transparency, accountability, performance and excellence, adding that anybody who wishes to know about the corporation’s activities should visit its website.
Ajinya equally stated that, just as the GMD had promised, by 2023, the country’s refineries would work to optimal capacity, noting that the corporation was working assiduously to put them in place.
Excerpts:
Transparency seems to be the next watchword for the NNPC. Can you throw more light in what the corporation is planning or doing as far as transparency in the oil sector is concerned?
Our new acronym is TAPE, which stands for Transparency, Accountability, Performance and Excellence. By transparency, we mean that there is nothing that we will do in the corporation that will be hidden to Nigerians and, as such, we know that we are accountable to Nigerians and therefore they have a right to know what we are doing because what we are managing is on behalf of Nigerians.
So, it is not the same NNPC that people used to see as operating like a cult, with hidden rules of operation that members of the public cannot access?
Absolutely no. Going forward, most of what we do will be found on our website and any government agency under the Freedom of Information Act, requiring any information in the corporation that is necessary, we will give that information free.
Sir, you talked about reviving the refineries. What are exactly the challenges regarding optimal productivity of the refineries?
Actually, you will recall that these refineries were built many years ago. They have aged over the years since the current president of Nigeria built them. But the maintenance and rehabilitation has never been done as and when due. They have gone to such a level that their performance level is sub-optimal and uneconomical.
What we are doing is to scope what is needed to rehabilitate the refineries in order to bring then back to their name plate capacities before we begin to operate them. Failing to do that, we will be taking crude and sending it to those refineries only to be destroying values. This is the essence behind the rehabilitation programme which we are pursuing vigorously. We have commenced with the Port Harcourt refinery and from there we move to Warri and Kaduna.
When will the Warri refinery be completed?
We are starting with Port Harcourt. We are scoping and it is a three-year programme for all the refineries. As the GMD said in his paper, by 2023 all these refineries will be back to their full potentials.
The new Minister of State for Petroleum Resources has been named. What level of relationship and cooperation should Nigerians be expecting from the NNPC and the new minister?
The Minister is a member of the family and NNPC will work very well with the incoming minister to deliver value to Nigerians.
Comment here