NNPC Remittance: Group Tells Arewa Consultative Youths Movement To Stop Dancing Naked In Public

The Integrity Youth Alliance has called on the Arewa Consultative Youth Movement to stop dancing naked in public.

According to a press release signed by the Board Chairman of the Group, Comrade Adewole Kehinde, he said that it is unfortunate that the Arewa Consultative Youths Movement could display their obtuseness in public on the alleged NNPC’s shortfall in its remittance to the Central Bank of Nigeria.

“Unfortunately, the so-called Arewa Consultative Youth Movement is so naïve to the fact that a combination of factors, such as declining oil production, rising subsidy payments, and high oil production costs, has hobbled the NNPC’s performance despite the increasing oil prices,” Adewole said.

The statement further read, “It is on record that the fall in crude oil prices in the international market hampered NNPC’s projected N1.27 trillion remittances to the Federation Account in the 2020 fiscal year, specifically, between April and December 2020.”

“We wondered if the so-called Arewa Consultative Youth Movement knows that Nigeria’s oil revenue target by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited declined by N1.06 trillion due to COVID-19 and the low crude oil price.”

According to the Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC Limited, Mal Mele Kyari, the country’s N2.64 trillion oil revenue target declined by 40 percent as a result of the twin shocks of COVID-19 and the low crude oil price.

Adewole reiterated that the pandemic created an unprecedented global crisis that caused regions, countries, sectors, companies, and individuals to experience reaction, resilience, recovery, and adjustment to a new reality.

“It is on record that upstream projects were delayed as a result of the pandemic restrictions.

“The energy industry had to struggle in the wake of a precipitous drop in oil and gas prices due to dampened demand from the effects of COVID-19.

“Revenue and production decline present major challenges for oil and gas companies, especially those at risk of being unable to refinance debt.”

Pipeline vandalism, which is a willful or deliberate act of destroying petroleum pipelines to steal crude oil and other associated products, is a menace that has continued to plague Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.

“Despite dwindling revenue and an increasing debt profile, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited spent about N33 billion on repairs and maintenance of pipelines within a space of 13 months.”

Between January 2020 and January 2021, data from the Federal Account and Allocation Committee showed that in the first quarter of 2020, a total of N10.2 billion was expended on repairs, with a crude and product loss valued at N21.6 billion.

“Also, Nigeria’s daily petrol consumption, which stood at 102 million litres per day, has affected the remittance as subsidy payment has kept the country in a state of bleeding, as it cannot sustain the payment of subsidy that accompanies the volume put at 102 million litres.

According to the Group CEO of the NNPC Limited, with the high volume of daily consumption, the country cannot sustain subsidy payments.

“The difference comes back to as much as N140 billion to N150 billion monthly. As long as the volume goes up, that money continues to increase and we have two sets of stress to face; the stress of supply and the stress of foreign exchange for the NNPC. We may not see foreign exchange clearing taking place for importation, “Kyari said.”

It is on record that the NNPC Limited, under the management of Mal Mele Kyari, used aggressive capital allocation to prioritize low-cost oil production and additional measures to ensure cost discipline across the board, including renegotiation of contracts and other business obligations, thus saving 40 percent of the proposed budget and cost.

The statement concluded, “We wish to enlighten the Arewa Consultative Youths Movement that since Mal Mele Kyari took over as Group CEO of the NNPC Limited, the company has made very drastic changes to the way it does business; the major being to ensure that this company is transparent and accountable to Nigerian people, which processes kicked off in 2015.”