The Integrity Youth Alliance has condemned the statement credited to a former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, which says that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration inflated the petrol imports figures when global oil prices went up.
In a press release on Wednesday, 27th October, 201 in Abuja, the National Coordinator of the Alliance, Kelvin Adegbenga said that it is on record that the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari has said that concerted efforts by the Corporation and some federal agencies to combat the menace of smuggling of petroleum products have been largely hampered by existing arbitrage fueled by the prevailing huge price differentials in pump price of petrol in Nigeria and neighbouring countries.
In responding Sanusi’s question on what happened between 2015 and 2019 that our consumption doubled? The statement said that the GMD of the NNPC has answered Sanusi’s question during an interactive session by the Joint Senate Committee on the 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, and Fiscal Strategy Paper, FSP, when he said that the activities of smugglers have also made it difficult for the country to determine the actual consumption figures for petrol, noting that the Corporation can only know what was trucked out from loading depots across the country but cannot determine how much of that was consumed in-country.
The claim by Sanusi that “the NNPC would say we have imported fuel, use the name of a vessel – people say they imported fuel; you go and check and the vessel was nowhere near Nigeria on the day they said it was in Lagos, and people have collected subsidy on those things,” never arose under the management of Mallam Mele Kyari as the Transparency, Accountability and Performance Excellence (TAPE) agenda he set in place has brought about greater transparency and accountability in NNPC’s management of Nigerian oil and gas revenues to date.
“We wish to remind Sanusi that in order to check the activities of smugglers, the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), have said that the corporation would henceforth employ electronic to monitor fuel distribution across the country, the statement said.
“The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has embarked on an ongoing initiative to put the electronic monitors on tank and fuel stations that would monitor the distribution of fuel in the country.
“With the electronic monitoring, every truck carrying fuel would be visible as they discharged their load and would see all the fuel stations as they discharged.
“We wish to state categorically that in line with the Corporation’s commitment of becoming more accountable, transparent and driven by performance excellence, the Corporation has continued to sustain effective communication with stakeholders through the Monthly Financial and Operations Report (MFOR) and other reports published on its website and in national dailies, the statement concluded.
