By Taiye Odewale
Abuja
The Senate yesterday directed the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to go beyond addressing the human factor responsible for its loss of 82 million litres of fuel, worth N11 billion, in strategic reserves few months back by putting in place measures that would prevent reoccurrence.
The NNPC had, as stated in a motion, moved on the floor of the Senate by Senator Kabiru Marafa (APC, Zamfara Central) in February, this year, lost 130 million litres through a breach in its transactions with MRS and Capital Oil Companies out of which Capital oil fraudulently sold 82 million litres (N11 billion) from the stock in connivance with officials of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC) the NNPC subsidiary in charge.
Marafa, in the motion, also submitted that another oil company, MRS that sold the remaining N48 million litres of fuel out of the 130million litres stolen from the strategic reserves later remitted to the PPMC the monetary worth of the illegal deal while capital oil has not remitted a dime out of the N11 billion worth 82 million litres of fuel it illegally went away with.
An open scandal that had made the top management of NNPC to sanction some of its officials alleged to be involved in the scam either by way of redeployment or outright sack as recently confirmed by its spokesman, Ndu Ughamadu, who said the sack and deployment were in line with the on-going reforms the Corporation initiated to cleanse it of corruption.
However, the Senate through a statement issued by its spokesman, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abddullahi, yesterday, advised that NNPC should go beyond the sacking and redeployment of a few officials, and initiate “a comprehensive restructuring of its operations which presently allow officials and other firms to appropriate national resources for their personal use, thereby contributing to the suffering of the people.”
The statement read in part: “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.
“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.”
The upper chamber in the statement, also commended the NNPC for responding to Senate’s prayers in the motion on the theft of petroleum products kept in the farm tanks of two oil companies and urged the Corporation to take more radical measures to avoid reoccurrence.
