‘Sack of officials involved in fuel theft not enough,’ Senate tells agency

monjola sotubo

April 17, 2017 1:04 PM

The upper legislative chamber also told the NNPC to go beyond sacking and redeploying staff involved in the recent unauthorized sale of 132 million litres of fuel.

Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru

The Senate has urged the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to take stronger action to put an end to fuel theft by its officials.

The upper legislative chamber also told the NNPC to go beyond sacking and redeploying staff involved in the recent unauthorized sale of 132 million litres of fuel.

The Senate made the comments via a statement by its spokesman, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi.

The statement reads in part:

“The Senate is appalled that NNPC is not contemplating on doing something about the involvement of officials of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC) which actually played key roles in the missing products case.”

“It is instructive that NNPC did not do anything on the case until the matter was raised on the floor of the Senate and the press picked the matter up from the motion.

“The unauthorized sale of 132 million litres of fuel kept in the storage tanks of MRS and Capital Oil designated as strategic reserves is a grave occurrence. This probably is not the first time it is happening and NNPC must review its operations. It should in fact carry out a shakeup in the PPMC.”

The Senate also praised the NNPC for responding to the motion moved by the Chairman, Committee on Petroleum Downstream Sector Senator Kabiru Marafa, on the theft of petroleum products kept in the tank farms of MRS and Capital Oil.

The Senate further urged the NNPC to initiate a comprehensive restructuring of its operations which presently allow officials and other firms to appropriate national resources for their personal use, thereby contributing to the suffering of the people.

The NNPC lost 130 million litres through a breach in its throughput transactions with MRS and Capital Oil.

monjola sotubo