“FG major hindrance to affected NNPC’s finances for 43 years”

Following a N287 billion profit after tax declaration by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, International Energy Services Limited, Dr. Diran Fawibe said misappropriation and misallocation of funds by the government affected the profitability of the national oil firm.

Without such development, Fawibe said the corporation would have continuously made profit, adding that the Federal Government has been the major challenge of the state-owned firm.

Clarifying an earlier interview on the development, Fawibe stated that undue political interference and illegal deductions of money from the company’s account, payment of subsidies, funding of arms and politically related activities affected the operational outlook of the firm.

“For example, in the past, NNPC had been made to pay monies to finance arms purchases or transfer funds to security agencies or illegal deductions of money to finance elections or some other sundry expenditures totally unrelated to NNPC businesses.

“Of course, NNPC cannot make any profit under such a situation. Presumably, that such a situation is not happening now or not allowed to be the case is a big credit to President Buhari and the leadership of NNPC.

“If NNPC had been allowed to run its operation freely without political interference, it could not have kept its refineries for many years without refining a litre of product, yet it continued to spend colossal billions of naira.

“A normal and typical organisation conscious of making money will not do such a thing. These expenditures of maintaining idle refineries will reflect badly on the books and financials of NNPC. You can imagine the pernicious effects of subsidy payments of the years and the cost of pipeline vandalism on the financials of NNPC leading to losses year in year out. And this is not a case of non-performance on the part of NNPC as a company,” he said.