The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has solicited the support of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in the current efforts of the Federal Government to combat the crude oil theft incidents nationwide in view of the destructive impacts on the nation’s economy.
The Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, appealed for the anti-grant agencies collaboration on the worrisome incidents during a meeting with EFCC’s Executive Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, at the NNPC Towers in Abuja on Monday.
The NNPCL’s Chief Communications Officer, Olufemi Soneye, quoted Kyari as recalling the measures being taken by the state-owned oil company to frontally tackle all forms of corruption, but particularly crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism in the hydrocarbon resources industry.
During the meeting, Kyari elaborately highlighted the sundry measures being implemented to sanitize the upstream sub-sector of the industry to protect the nation’s oil assets.
He said: “As we continue to do our best to deepen transparency and stamp out corruption from the system, there is one big challenge that you will need to help us with, Mr. Chairman.
“That challenge is crude theft. It fits into everything you have said—the people, the asset, the opportunity, and the absence of deterrence.
“We have deactivated 6,409 illegal refineries in the Niger Delta region. Today, we have disconnected up to 4,846 illegal pipes connected to our pipelines, that is out of 5,543 such illegal connection points. That means there are a vast number of such connections that we have not removed.
“These things don’t just happen from the blues. They happen in communities and locations we all know. As we remove one illegal connection, another one comes up. It is sad, Mr. Chairman,”
“I believe, personally, that the very purpose of your commission is to curtail economic crimes, and there is no bigger economic crime of this scale anywhere else than what is happening in this area”, Kyari added.
The industry expert stressed that to win the anti-corruption battle in the industry, Kyari said that NNPCL must operate within a framework of high ethical standards in line with extant laws in the industry.
On the efforts by the company’s management to sanitize the abuses in the industry, Kyari explained that it had introduced systems and measures to prevent discretionary behaviours that contribute to corruption, including investments in automation of processes to prevent arbitrary actions.
In his remarks, the Executive Chairman of EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede, expressed satisfaction with the company leadership’s commitment to promoting ethics and code of conduct in the industry and advised that the initiatives should be complemented with monitoring and enforcement to enhance deterrence.
