Shake-up imminent in NNPC

President Muhammadu Buhari is planning to reorganise the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), DGossip247 learnt yesterday.

The impending change may lead to the replacement of the Group Managing Director (GMD), Dr. Joseph Dawha. A source confided in New Telegraph that the president was considering appointing Mr. Sulaiman Akowe Achimugu, a former Managing Director of Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), to take over from Dawha. Achimugu is presently the Group General Manager of Renewable Energy Division of the NNPC.

Dawha, who replaced Mr. Andrew Yakubu, was appointed GMD in August 2014. The source also stated that other heads of parastatals and management staff of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources would be affected in the massive shake-up of the oil sector.

According to him, the essence of sacking the heads of the parastatals of the ministry is to pave the way for overhauling the sector and probing its accounts. In recent time, the oil and gas sector has been enmeshed in alleged misappropriation and embezzlement of funds, especially with claims by a former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, now the Emir of Kano, that NNPC failed to remit $20 billion from oil sales to the Federation Account. But a forensic audit carried out by PriceWater- HouseCoopers said there was no missing fund, but recommended that NNPC should refund $1.48billion.

Achimugu joined the NNPC in 1978 as Chemical Engineer II and later in 1999 after traversing the oil sector; he was deployed to NNPC Corporate Headquarters as General Manager, Turn Around Maintenance and Projects in the Refining and Petrochemicals Directorate. In November 2003, Achimugu was appointed Managing Director of Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) and in 2007, he was appointed the Group General Manager of Renewable Energy Division of the NNPC. Meanwhile, fuel marketers yesterday renewed their demand for payment of subsidy debts, which they claimed have hit N291 billion.

The marketers, who are members of Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA), said in a statement that commercial banks had, through a regulation from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), discontinued fuel import loans to them. It was learnt that marketers have already exceeded credit ceilings with the banks.

DAPPMA, in the statement by its Executive Secretary, Mr. Olufemi Adewole, said this was the first time since the establishment of the petroleum subsidy fund scheme that marketers were being subjected to difficulty in accessing funds to finance fuel importation.

“It should be noted that this is the first time that we will not have ready and easy access to fuel import loans as it is also the first time that commercial banks will notify importers that based on CBN regulations, importers have attained their credit ceilings with their various banks and would have to make some refunds on the existing loans to the sector prior to being funded for petrol imports. Unfortunately, the expected refund to the banks is yet to be reimbursed by the Federal Government.

“Aftermath of the Senate Committees’ meeting with major petroleum industry stakeholders which successfully persuaded the petroleum tanker drivers, PTD-NUPENG and NARTO to call off their strike on Monday, May 25, and resume loading of fuel from the various depots that had stock, it has become necessary to state the fact that depot owners and other fuel importers under the ‘petroleum subsidy scheme’ are still being owed billions of naira in unpaid subsidy reimbursement, interest on delayed payment and foreign exchange differentials,” it said.

According to DAPPMA, due to “debts owed transporters by marketers, who have been experiencing serious financial stress due to outstanding debts owed them by the Federal Government as a result of petrol imports under the petroleum subsidy scheme, the PTD-NUPENG and NARTO had at various times protested nonpayment of their freight charges by withdrawing their services. Hence, it is unfortunate for anyone to insinuate that marketers are blackmailers holding the nation to ransom via a strike about which they know nothing.”

The oil marketers also called for total deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry.