Why is Maikanti Baru Still NNPC’s GMD?
Allegations of malfeasance against the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation pour daily. It is bewildering that Maikanti Baru remains the boss of this behemoth despite tons of apparent wrongdoings. The latest is the information provided by the Department of Petroleum Resources to the Nigerian Governors’ Forum which contradicts claims by the NNPC that Nigeria is now consuming an average of 65 million litres of petrol daily. The DPR simply confirmed NGF’s publicised suspicion that the NNPC was reporting excessive petrol consumption figure to facilitate deduction of undue petrol cost (under-recovery) from domestic crude cost. This explains the shortfall in what NNPC remits to the Federation Account. The puzzled governors had to call for the DPR report because they could not understand why the consumption of petrol would jump from an average of 30 million litres per day three years ago to an average of about 65 million litres daily under a “change” administration.
NNPC is strongly suspected to be duping the federation with deceitful claims as subsidy on imported petrol. This is why the governors have been calling for an audit of the corporation’s petrol importation, claiming daily petrol consumption figures reported by the NNPC were overblown by the corporation, so that it could keep more money away from FAAC. In fact, NNPC even shockingly reported that daily consumption of petrol reached a peak of over 70 million litres per day “during the festive period of November and December 2017, and through the crises period.” What a country!
The most frightening aspect of the incriminating DPR report states: “There was never a time where PMS Truck Out (evacuation) reached 60 million litres per day. Additionally, the PPPRA evacuation data since January 2016 indicated average volume of 50 million litres per day.” Evidently, NNPC’s petrol subsidy claims are fraudulently based on supply and not evacuation or consumption. So, they just make all sorts of import claims and follow up with subsidy claims. For example, in May this year alone, NNPC made deductions totaling N31.12 billion as subsidy claims. That same month, it made another N57.79 billion deduction said to be “outstanding subsidy claims for 2017.” The methodology of Baru’s subsidy payment is evidently impervious. Besides, there are no budgetary provisions for subsidy. So, it is an aberration.
Prior to the DPR indictment, NNPC had been struggling to defend allegations of subsidy fraud against it by the Chairman of the NGF and Zamfara State governor, Abdulaziz Yari. Recently, the governor openly rejected the corporation’s outlandish claim of 60-65 million litres average national daily consumption of petrol. This was after a meeting of the NGF with Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo at the State House. “Many of our international partners are saying that even if we are feeding Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana and Niger, we cannot consume more than 35 million litres per day. So, we are wondering where the 60 million litres is coming from,” remarked a visibly worried Yari.
I can vividly recollect that Ibe Kachikwu as NNPC GMD disputed the 35 million litres average daily consumption inherited from the Jonathan government, insisting that their checks found the figure was far less. Kachikwu then put the realistic national consumption figure at 23-25 million litres per day. Under a “change” government, Nigeria now consumes an average of 65 million litres daily under Baru. Who is fooling who? Another frightening trend is that alarming sums are daily expended on petrol importation by the NNPC without query. That was why the NNPC spent a monstrous $5.8 billion on the importation of 9.8 million metric tons of petrol in four months - October 2017 to January 2018 – without query. The NNPC under Baru has become an outlaw and bigger than virtually everybody in Nigeria. It persistently refuses to make correct remittances to the Federation Account for crude oil sold, yet, nobody queries this monster. Its recalcitrance stalled the last FAAC meeting for the distribution of May revenue because its remittance was less N20 billion, without any plausible explanation.
It was also observed at the FAAC meeting that “NNPC claimed it spent N3.5 billion on product leakages and pipeline vandalism, but the Department of Petroleum Resources, an agency that is supposed to keep such record, claimed ignorance of the amount”. Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun remarked: “We operate the NNPC as a business. We have invested public capital in that business; and we have expectations of return. And when that return falls lower than our expectations, then the owners of this business, which in this case are the Federal Government and states, need to act…We felt that some of the costs couldn’t be justified.”
Sleaze allegations against the NNPC under this “change” government are unending. The memo written by Kachikwu on sleaze in the corporation remains fresh in our memory. Contracts running into billions of USD were allegedly awarded exclusively by Baru, without due process. Some of them included the crude term contracts valued at over $10 billion; DSDP contracts valued at over $5 billion; the AKK pipeline contract valued at approximately $3 billion; various financing allocation-funding contracts with the NOCs valued at over $3 billion and various NPDC production service contracts valued at over $3 billion. Kachikwu further alleged that during the first year of Baru’s tenure, no contract was cleared by the NNPC board, despite legal and procedural requirements that all contracts above $20 million should be reviewed and approved by the board.
It is mystifying that Baru remains GMD while NNPC bleeds the nation. Judgement day is around the corner. I believe this.