The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has commended the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on its decision to make public the corporation audited accounts for the first time in its history.
NEITI stated that the decision fulfilled a pledge made by NNPC’s Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, to ensure transparency and accountability at the national oil firm.
The Executive Secretary, NEITI, Waziri Adio, said, “We welcome the eventual fulfilment of this important pledge and obligation.
“Given NNPC’s antecedents and its prominent role in the sector and in the country, the publication of its audited accounts is positive, signalling more openness for the oil and gas sector and for Nigeria.
“When combined with the monthly reports that the NNPC started publishing in 2016, this development marks a sea-change for a national oil company that used to be renowned for opacity.
“We urge the NNPC to make this a routine practice and to mainstream transparency into all facets of its operations.”
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NEITI also requested the oil firm to go farther by publishing its previous audited accounts and in open data formats so that the reports could be more accessible to the citizenry.
This is as the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari, has revealed that NNPC has the records of the amount of petrol being lifted from various depots daily but it does not know the exact litres of oil being consumed in the country per day.
Kyari stated this at an interactive hearing on “Exiting Petroleum Subsidy: Ensuring Self – Sufficiency in Domestic Refining of Petroleum Products”.
The event was organised by the Joint Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream and Downstream).
The corporation disclosed that the daily consumption of petrol in Nigeria, based on product evacuation record at the depot, is at about 54 million litres.
