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The House of Representatives has challenged the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) regarding the failure to remit an unpaid amount of $278,184,937.72 from the transaction involving OML 24 in 2019.
Based on the records from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), it was reported that the transfer of OML 24 resulted in an outstanding balance of $278,184,937.72 owed to the government by the NNPC/NEPL.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, presented a somber outlook on the nation’s oil and gas sector.
He said: “We understand very clearly that our national revenue is the premised on the oil and gas industry. It’s very crucial that this industry gets all the focus that it deserves and is necessary. We also understand that every other sector of the economy are clearly tied to the functionality and performance of the oil and gas, including other taxes that are collected by government like value added tax and so on. Many of them are clearly related to the performance of our industry.
“It is very typical anywhere in the world, the first line of deduction from any revenue is your cost, otherwise there will not be another revenue for you to deduct from.
“And that means you have to continuously invest so that you’ll continue to make more money beyond the investment that you’re making. This is the only way that you can grow. I also confirm that we have a very very peculiar industry and it’s very clear that we are one of the most expensive production environment anywhere in the world.
“This is also very true and there can be lamentations on why this is so, but we also face the issue. First of all, today, there’s nowhere in the world where people have inserted over 5,000 illegal collections into your production line. In it doesn’t happen anywhere, it’s nobody’s experience, it doesn’t happen any part of the world.
“Today, we have destroyed over 6,000 illegal refineries that are tapping crude oil from our production. This doesn’t happen anywhere in the world and nobody can factor it into the process. Once you create this situation of uncertainty, which by the way is not new.”
