El-Rufai Blast NNPC Tell Buhari You Must Be Destroyed NNPC, In a report the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, while speaking at the 7th Wole Soyinka Centre Media Lecture Series, was said to have burst out in anger over the level of corruption in the National oil firm. He said the NNPC is being run as if it is a parallel government.
El-Rufai added that he hope the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari would “kill” the corporation. “The NNPC (Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation) must die!” these are the exact words Nasir el-Rufai used.
The Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai called on Buhari to facilitate the setting up of another National oil firm, as the NNPC would kill Nigeria if Nigeria did not kill it first. el-Rufai said, “If you don’t kill the NNPC, it will kill Nigeria.” The governor said the level of corruption in the NNPC is not redeemable, and also there will be no significant development or CHANGE in Nigeria until NNPC is completely scrapped and a new National oil firm is rebuilt from scratch. Which is a possible and an achievable solution to the corruption riddled NNPC. He said destroying a bad organisation and turning it into a good one is possible.
Mallam Nasir el-Rufai alleged that in the last three years, the NNPC only remitted 42 per cent of what it ought to remit to the Federal Government. He maintained that Nigeria’s collective wealth was being gobbled by the less than 1,000 employees of the corporation. The also tried to use statistics to explain his recommendation on why present NNPC must be killed. He explained that the reliance of the nation on refined petroleum products importation has led to a very unsustainable expenses on questionable subsidy payments, or how else could $8.99bn spent in the 18 months between January 2012 and June 2013 be described.
The Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai was quoted saying:
“About N971bn was budgeted for subsidy payments in 2014 alone (more than twice that was eventually paid). You all recall how trillions of naira were paid out as oil subsidy in 2011, when only N254bn was appropriated. No one has been successfully prosecuted for this scam. Huge deficits in gas supply have ensured that the country’s thermal plants cannot produce power at optimal levels.
“In the eight years leading up to 2014, joint venture production declined by 50.4 per cent. Some 100,000 barrels per day, about five per cent of total production, is estimated to be lost to organised theft. And we all dread the ease and rapidity with which supply shortages lead to endless queues, widespread panic and mortal consequences for the many victims of tanker accidents.
“The long and short of the situation of our oil industry is best exemplified by the parallel government called the NNPC. In 2012, it sold N2.77tn of ‘domestic’ crude oil but paid only N1.66tn to the Federation Account. In 2013, it earned N2.66tn but paid N1.56tn to FAAC; in 2014, (it earned) N2.64tn, but remitted N1.44tn; while between January and May 2015, it earned N733.36bn and remitted only N473.2bn.
“That means that the NNPC only remitted about 58 per cent of the monies earned between 2012 and the first half of 2015. A company with the audacity to retain 42 per cent of a country’s money has become a veritable parallel republic!”
Mallam Nasir el-Rufai also noted that when the NNPC felt they are entitled to consume more resources than the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, and the Federal Government combined, we should know there is something terribly wrong. He added that “the example just given is only with respect to domestic crude oil sale. Similar leakages exist in the NPDC, NAPIMS procurement and subsidiary budgets.”
Mallam Nasir el-Rufai gave suggestions on how Nigeria can have a way out of the NNPC mess. He said Nigeria need to demonstrate a new purpose by “slaying three huge dragons,” which he outline as “a fixation with public ownership and control of every major oil asset, the corruption and distortion that oil subsidy is inflicting on our economy, and the NNPC in its current form is not in our collective national interest.” El-Rufai said there is an urgent need to tackle the corruption and distortion in the subsidy regime.
He said the oils subsidy had done no good to Nigerian people nor bring about stability to refined petroleum products supplies, rather it has made a huge hole in the Nation’s budget and a new set of overnight billionaires.
Mallam Nasir el-Rufai said, “An efficient and productive oil sector, able to create jobs, spur industrialisation and earn more revenues, requires that we tackle the monster that the NNPC has become. This country can no longer afford to maintain an NNPC that arrogantly, unlawfully and unconstitutionally spends an unhealthy proportion of national oil earnings on itself.
“We should replace the NNPC with brand new organisations that are fit for purpose, among others, a commercialised and corporatised national oil company, and new industry regulators. This new national oil company should be capitalised once and for all, and then freed to fend for itself like other national oil companies do, seeking its financing independently from the financial markets and paying due taxes and royalties.
He also noted that only President Buhari is best qualified to handle this than any other person, as he was the person that birthed the NNPC through the merger of the NNOC and the Ministry of Petroleum in 1977, President Buhari himself.
“No one can appreciate the gap between the vision of the NNPC’s founding fathers, the beautiful baby of 1977 and the 38 year-old monster it has become better than President Buhari. The NNPC of today must make Chief Sunday Awoniyi of blessed memory squirm in his grave. Something fundamentally decisive must be done to tame this monster.”
El-Rufai Nigeria is blessed with oil fortune, but the decline in the nation’s revenue or the negligence in using it to build human capital or enduring physical infrastructure was another matter. He said, “The PUNCH Newspaper of April 2, 2015, quoting figures from the United States Department of Energy, placed oil export earnings for the year 2011 at $99bn. Indeed, in the five Jonathanian years, Nigeria earned nearly $500bn from crude oil and gas sales.”
El-Rufai said in a country that has earned over $1tn from oil in 50 years, if 40 percent are estimated to be very poor and living below the $1 per day poverty level, then there is a serious problem in that country. Nigeria need to destroy the NNPC. He said, “Our rich enjoy the lifestyles of the richest in the world, while our poor are truly the wretched of the earth. This inequality is most unfortunate. That wide gulf in living standards is clearly problematic.”
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