National Coordinator of the South-South Elders Forum, Chief Anabs Sara-Igbe, has said that the policies put in place by the Mele Kyari-led management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) is what is hindering Nigeria’s refineries from working, and that the refineries may not work if those policies are not changed.
Sara-Igbe said this in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday, where he revealed that the Managing Directors of Nigeria’s refineries, under the new policies set by the NNPC’s management, were no longer allowed to run refineries the way it was meant to be run.
He said, “The refineries may not work for now, and the answer is very simple. The policy of the new management of NNPC under Mele Kyari is one of the reasons why the refineries are not working. Before the new management came in in 2019, fuel price was between 145 and 150 per litre. The Warri refinery was producing and Port Harcourt was having some problems. The new management came in with a policy drive that they will change a lot of things in the country and NNPC, and these policies they have introduced have caused a lot of problems- more harm than good, to the country and also to the NNPC.”
Sara-Igbe went on to state that the management of Nigeria’s refineries had been significantly altered, with managing directors no longer given autonomy to run the refineries effectively, saying, “NNPC has a tradition where the Corporate Headquarters have their budget, the subsidiaries also have their budgets. The refineries MDs are supposed to approve at least, maximum of $2 billion for any procurement or contract, where they exceed that, they go to what you call DEXCOM. After DEXCOM, they will go to the NNPC manager committee before they go to the NNPC board.
“But ever since 2019, this thing changed. The refineries were asked to shut down for rehabilitation, and the managing directors of the refineries were no longer allowed to run the refineries the way it should be run. Every time, they will go cap in hand to the GMD, begging for money. So, when they are not encouraged to work- $1,000, you’ll go to the GMC, 500, you’ll go to the GMD, so how will it work?
“We left Badagry Refinery without production- find out what is holding it, it’s bureaucracy that is holding it. The Warri Refinery that is working that they shut down, they are rehabilitating it, find out what is the problem, it’s this in-house funding problem. Budget has been made, approved for these refineries to be rehabilitated, but how are the funds released to the refineries?”
He said that besides the issues with Nigeria’s refineries, the policies that the current management of the NNPC put in place have created problems in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. “There is no production going on in industry, there are no new wells, there are not processing because the companies are all dying, operations are also going down because of wrong policies and wrong directions. So, the refineries themselves, they keep on making promises upon promises, and they’re not going to do it unless they go back to the normal process where the MDs take charge of the refineries,” he said.
He also said, “The refineries as they are today, they are being run by Nigerians, and most of the experienced hands are retiring and going because there is no new intake, and if there is new intake, it’s nepotism.”
Sara-Igbe then raised concerns about the management of fuel subsidies, saying, “Before Mele Kyari came on board, they said oh, they are paying subsidy, there is subsidy. But from that time, from 2019 till now, NNPC is the sole importer of petroleum. So, who are they paying subsidy to? Is it to NNPC or to who? We want to know where the money is going, if there is somebody who was stealing the money before, and now NNPC is the one importing, NNPC is the one selling, and they’re talking about subsidy. And now, they have removed subsidy, and yet, how is it affecting us?
“Like I said before, the policies of this current management have not been fair to both the Corporate NNPC, the subsidiaries, the Nigerian public, and particularly the Niger Delta. Cost of living is so high because of subsidy or no subsidy, and you are now telling us, on, there’s subsidy, and the fuel price is still going up every day. It’s a wrong management policy. They have not been able to manage this well.”
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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