Uche Usim, Abuja
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Thursday released its 2019 audited financial statement which showed a reduction in losses from ₦803bn in 2018 to ₦1.7 billion last year.
This comes barely five months after it released its 2018 audited financial statement, the first of its kind in 37 years.
According NNPC’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Mr. Umar Ajiya, the reduction in its loss profile represents 99.7%, adding that the
2019 audited statement will be published on the Corporation’s website for public perusal in keeping with management’s commitment to transparency and accountability and in consonance with the principles of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
Giving further insight into the 2019 AFS, the CFO disclosed that general administrative expenses also witnessed a 22% dip from ₦894bn in 2018 to ₦696bn in 2019.
According to Ajiya, majority of the subsidiaries posted improved performance namely, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited (NPDC) which recorded ₦479Billion profit in 2019 compared to ₦179Billion in 2018 representing 167% increase; the Integrated Data Sciences Limited (IDSL) recorded ₦23Billion profit in 2019 compared to ₦154Million in 2018 representing 14966% increase; the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC) recorded ₦14.2Billion profit in 2019 compared to ₦9.3Billion in 2018 representing 52% increase; while the Refineries have maintained the same level of losses as in 2018 but which will reduce significantly in 2020 due to cost optimization drive.
The CFO explained that the improved performance in the 2019 financial year was driven mainly by cost optimization, contracts renegotiation and operational efficiency. He said “the 2019 AFS goes further to demonstrate our unwavering commitment to the principle of Transparency, Accountability and Performance Excellence (TAPE) while the outlook for 2020 looks promising in view of the Management’s strong drive to prune down running cost and grow revenues.”
The Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari, had promised to sustain the publication of the Corporation’s Audited Financial Statement as part of efforts to deepen transparency and accountability and keep stakeholders abreast of NNPC operations.