NNPC: EFCC and DSS To Go After Two Major Oil Coys

The EFCC and DSS seems set to go after two major oil companies in the country MRS Limited and Capital Oil and Gas Limited over NNPC’s products kept in their care but allegedly sold without the corporation’s consent, or knowledge.

The NNPC says it has reported to the anti-graft agency, and Nigeria’s secret police how both companies illegally sold about 130 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, valued at N17.439 billion, belonging to it.

Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the NNPC  making this known
in a statement, said the product was stored in the facilities of the two indigenous downstream operators, under a throughput arrangement as part of efforts to ensure a robust strategic reserve.

"The corporation is bent on full recovery of the product or its cash equivalent, hence its recourse to the anti-graft and security agencies", Ughamadu stated.

To achieve this, the NNPC said it has set up two committees: one to examine the roles of some of its staff in the illegal evacuation of the product, adding, that it is also undertaking a review of its entire throughput policy in order to align it with global best practices

Ughamadu stated that this committee will also carry out a review of the Corporation’s policy and guidelines for engaging in throughput arrangements with third parties to establish control measures that could help avert a similar incident in the future.

The corporation noted that a disciplinary committee had also been set up to investigate and deal with any of its staff involved in the issue, as part of efforts to forestall any such happenings in the future.

Speaking also, Mr. Henry Ikem-Obih, Chief Operating Officer, NNPC Downstream, also stated that so far, MRS has fully complied by returning the 30 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) that it collected.

Ikem-Obih lamented however, that Capital Oil and Gas has been unable to return 82 million litres of petrol, valued at N11 billion, out of over 100 million litres which it took.

He disclosed that the infraction was discovered earlier in the year when the Corporation needed to access the over 100 million litres of petrol stored at the Capital Oil & Gas depot for NNPC Retail and just over 30 million litres in MRS Limited depot both in Apapa area of Lagos.

“We instructed the Nigerian Products Marketing Company (NPMC) a subsidiary of NNPC, to send additional trucks to those locations to move products for distribution aimed at meeting a supply shortfall we discovered in the market, but after days of not being able to access the terminals we had to take a decision as NNPC Management to invite auditors and inspectors to go and do a physical check on the inventories".

“The visit revealed that there was no molecule of product for the NNPC to evacuate”, he said.