Go Beyond Sacking Officials Involved in Oil Theft, Senate Tells NNPC

Damilola Oyedele in Abuja
The Senate has urged the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to go beyond mere sacking or redeployment of some officials involved in theft of 132 million liters of fuel,  but to embark on a complete restructuring of its operations to avoid recurrence of such incident.

The upper legislative chamber, reacting to the recent sack of some officials of the oil corporation for the theft of petroleum products kept in the tank farms of two firms: MRS Oil and Capital Oil, noted that the current structure of the NNPC’s operations allows its officials and other firms to appropriate national resources for personal use.

In a statement issued by its spokesman, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, yesterday, the Senate recalled that the NNPC took the recent action in response to a motion moved by the Chairman of its Committee on Petroleum Downstream Sector, Senator Kabiru Marafa.

“The Senate is appalled that NNPC is not contemplating on doing something about the involvement of officials of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC) which actually played key roles in the missing products case,” Abdullahi said.

“It is instructive that NNPC did not do anything on the case until the matter was raised on the floor of the Senate and the press picked the matter up from the motion. The unauthorised sale  of 132 million litres of fuel kept in the storage tanks of MRS and Capital Oil designated as strategic reserves is a grave occurrence. This probably is not the first time it is happening and NNPC must review its operations. It should in fact carry out a shake up in the PPMC,” Abdullahi stated.

Following the Senate debate of the motion on the theft of the fuel, the NNPC sacked two senior officials and redeployed some others.

Its spokesman, Ndu Ughamadu, said the sack and deployment were in line with the ongoing reforms the corporation initiated to cleanse it of corruption.

The NNPC lost 130 million litres through a breach in its throughput transactions with MRS and Capital Oil, the statement read, adding that while MRS had returned the product it sold from the stock Capital Oil is yet to refund the 82 million litres it sold, insisting that NNPC owed it on past business transactions.
The fuel sold by Capital Oil is allegedly valued at N11 billion, the statement added.