NNPC Under PDP, “Cesspool Of Corruption,” CPC Says

By SaharaReporters, New York

The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has called for the implementation of the Nuhu Ribadu-led oil revenue task force, warning that Nigeria being a mono-economy, the government must be seen to be supporting efforts at maintaining probity in the oil industry.
In a press statement signed by Rotimi Fashakin, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, CPC noted the highlights of the report as follows:
•       N86.6 Billion in cash from generous exchange rates over the 10-year period had disappeared.
•       The NNPC had been getting 445,000 barrels per day of crude oil for local refining and consumption but had been selling itself this oil at cut-down prices, a practice that had cost Nigeria $5Billion in potential oil revenue in the same period.
•       Nigerian oil ministers (between 2008 and 2011) handed out seven discretionary licenses, with $183million in signature bonuses missing from the deals.
•       $1.5 Billion (in unpaid royalties) owed by Addax.
•       N137.57Billion debt owed by Shell for gas sold.
•       Nigeria is the ONLY Nation to sell all its crude through
International oil traders rather than directly to refineries, deals
usually enmeshed in opacity.
“The corruption in the oil industry has reached the crescendo in the 13-year reign of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with unbudgeted trillions of Naira (ostensibly used in corrupting the electoral process in 2011),” the statement said, adding that the infernal nature of the corruptive tendencies in the industry (under PDP) is seen in the pains inflicted on the Nigerian people in getting unfettered access to petroleum products for their daily needs.
Furthermore, it noted that despite a six increments in the pump price of petroleum products between 1999 and 2007, PDP governments seem unfazed about hurts and the pains inflicted by the heist and the deliberate purloining of the nation’s oil resources under their watch. “It is, without doubt, the reason that a new generation of people has been ennobled into the super-rich Nigerians, on behalf of the rest of us,” CPC said.
The party also expressed bewilderment that a report submitted to the Minister of Petroleum resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke since late August is still said to be a mere draft, without clear timelines on when the final document would be submitted.
“Is the Honourable Minister showing, with her body language, that this administration is only interested in laying subterfuge for an anti-corruption war in the oil Industry that it does not intend to pursue with scrupulous diligence?
“The CPC Party has always postulated: the Jonathan administration is not only the most corrupt in the nation’s history but it is also capable of throwing the Nigerian state into unrecoverable downward spiral of economic depression,” the statement said.
The Goodluck Jonathan government set up the 21-member panel, under the leadership of the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ribadu, following last January’s nationwide protests against the sudden hike in fuel prices.