Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Upstream, yesterday, grilled the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) , Melee Kyari, over the corporation’s 2020 expenditure and Joint Venture Corporation cash calls.
The lawmakers at a budget defence session with the GMD, said the NNPC failed to provide details of its expenditure in the 2020 fiscal year.
A member of the committee, Ossai Nicholas Ossai, said Kyari’s presentation was at variance with his claim that the the NNPC is transparent in its dealing.
“Your frontier exploration services, where you spent…Your details are not projected at all and explained. What you are basing on, you are basing on percentage. Per centage of what and what is the quantum of money you spent. You never gave details of the amount involved on this particular project on your JVC.
“You have told this House that you are transparent enough, so the issues of pipeline security and maintenance cost, you never gave us any details.”
However, the NNPC boss said they have made every data they have available to the National Assembly as it has nothing to hide.
“We are not avoiding conversation around refinery rehabilitation. We deliberately shut down all three refineries, it doesn’t make any further sense to continue to operate them because we are unable to supply crude oil to refinery. It is impossible to run this pipeline at their optimum capacity. For you to run Kaduna and Warri refinery, you need to deliver at 170,000 barrels of oil per day into this line will be able to operate at least 70 percent of their capacity.
“The lines as a result of acts of vandal that anytime we attempt to form more than ten thousand barrels per day, the line gives up so it can’t deliver more than hundred and ten.”