Group petitions ICPC over alleged discrepancies in crude oil production records

The Nigeria Citizens Watch for Good Governance has petitioned the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, calling for the investigation of the Group Chief Executive Officer, GCEO, of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NPCL, Mele Kyari, over alleged discrepancy in crude oil production records.

The petition signed by Collins Eshiofeh, the group’s National President, and Mohammed Grema Adamu, Secretary General, was addressed to the Chairman of the ICPC.

The petitioners called the attention of the anti-graft agency to the irregularities in number of barrels of crude oil produced per day in Nigeria.

“With reference to the above subject matter, we write to kindly draw your attention to dig deep and verify the irregularities in figures announced by the GCEO of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL),” it said

“Mele Kyari has announced more recently that the figure stands at around 1.6 million barrel per day, while there are allegations that the figure is around two million barrel per day. Nigerians are worried and therefore question the irregularities in figures and need to to know the truth.

“Secondly, we find it very ironical that despite all the different security outfits(Civil Defence, Military, Private Contractors etc) claimed to be guarding and protecting the National assets, by the NNPC Chief, there is still decline in Nigeria’s crude oil production attributed to oil theft and vandalism.

“We asked what role are these security outfits playing, which of the facilities are they protecting?? Nigerians demand an answer. The national assembly should be invited to note these irregularities and the GMD of NNPCL, all the International Oil Companies operating in Nigeria and other relevant stakeholders to as a matter of urgency, investigate these irregularities in declaration of figures of barrel of crude oil produced per day in order to enable us March declared figures with actual data pumped out for sale by all IOCs.

“The national assembly should immediately direct the use of latest modern technology by the management of NNPCL to keep accurate data of our crude oil roduction quantum.

“Thirdly, EFCC, ICPC and other relevant anti corruption agencies should be immediately invited where there are discrepancies in these declared figures to do the needful in order to clean up the mess in the Nigeria oil sectors so as to enable us meet up with our daily OPEC allocation.

“As the country’s economic mainstay, we plead with you to investigate this matter and make sure there are no irregularities and that the number of barrels declared are actually the number of barrels produced for the sake of revenue generation and to block all revenue leakages.”

Similar petitions were sent to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and the Senate President.