BY AHMED AKANBI
Former Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, on Tuesday, appeared before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, apologised for his previous absence, and insisted that no N210 trillion was lost under his leadership.
Kyari spoke during the legislative inquiry into the audited financial statements and financial operations of the NNPCL for the years ended 2017-2023. He said he had asked his counsel to represent him at earlier sittings, tender his apologies, and collect any documentation he needed to respond appropriately in view of the circumstances he faced at the time.
He said he was aware that his absence during previous meetings had led to misunderstandings and misinformation outside the committee and in the public space, and sincerely regretted that he was unable to attend those hearings. “It was unavoidable. I was medically indisposed, including some of the family issues associated with medical situation,” he said.
Kyari also recalled his long-standing relationship with Senator Adams Oshiomhole, whom he described as a comrade with whom he had shared views for many years about how Nigeria could become a better place for all.
He reminded the committee that the NNPCL was created by the National Assembly through the Petroleum Industry Act, saying: “The NNPC Limited was named and produced by this National Assembly by virtue of the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act. We merely acted to act on the decisions of the National Assembly and our country.”
He said when he took responsibility in 2019, the first thing he did was to institute a transparency and accountability framework, because public institutions must account to stakeholders, particularly shareholders, and in the case of NNPC, all Nigerians are shareholders.
He said his management took the bold decision to publish the financial records of the company, which he said had never been done in its 43 years of existence. “We knew, me and my team knew, the danger of doing this. Disclosure causes issues. It produces scrutiny and comments, but it also works to our advantage,” he said.
According to him, making the records public, from the 2018 accounts up to the time he left the company, led to sustained public discourse, scrutiny and sometimes recommendations which helped improve the company.
He said the accountability framework led to sustained growth, cost-saving measures and significant changes in the fortunes of the company, which recorded a loss of $803 billion in 2018 before he took over in 2019. “Of course, I took over in 2019, and we did everything possible until it became a positive company and making sustained profits as a company in these 44 years that it did not do,” he said.
He said the trajectory was continuing, with beautiful numbers coming out of the company, and that the current management had sustained the platforms established on the basis of the law.
Kyari said his management implemented all decisions of the National Assembly, including a free market environment for petroleum products, the subsidy regime and other policies, because they were decisions of the state and the Federal Government. He said the ultimate result was sustained investments in the oil and gas sector during his tenure, substantial gas projects that are now opening up opportunities in the country, and deepening of the downstream sector for the benefit of Nigeria.
Addressing the audit issues directly, Kyari said he had studied the report given to him and wished to state frontally that he doubted the submissions made by the former Chief Financial Officer in respect of the financial reports submitted. He singled out two issues requiring his specific explanation, the first being the N210 trillion construed in the reports to have been lost.
“And I confirm at this moment that nothing is lost. It’s simply not possible under my care and under my leadership for that to happen, but it did not happen,” he said. He said the issues were entry and bookkeeping issues that had nothing to do with any losses, adding: “I really, really confirm that nothing is lost, and those are just entry issues.”
The second issue, he said, concerned the registration or incorporation of NNPC Limited, which involved a payment made to the former Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Corporate Affairs Commission for registration of a company of NNPC’s size. He said the issue was simply an entry around who should pay for it, explaining that under the PIA, the owners of the company should incorporate it, but at that moment, NNPC was not necessarily the owner of the company.
Kyari said the PIA later clarified that NNPC belongs to the Federation, which was not the case in the past, and that at that moment, the Federation must pay for the incorporation, while NNPC, which was not owned by the Federation at that time, paid on behalf of the Federation and charged it to the Federation. He put the figure at N2.99 billion, correcting himself from an earlier mention of dollars, saying: “It’s actually a payment to, statutory payment to institutions of government that have that role to do.”