NNPC:Buhari sacks eight NNPC group executive directors

The news and relieve information was confirmed by the Group General
Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Mr. Ohi Alegbe, in a
statement on Wednesday night in Abuja.
Alegbe said in the statement, "The Federal Government has approved the
retirement of all eight group executive directors of the NNPC with
immediate effect.
"The affected group executive directors are Mr. Bernard Otti, GED,
Finance and Accounts; Dr. Timothy Okon, acting GED, Exploration and
Production, who also doubled as the Coordinator, Corporate Planning &
Strategy; Mr. Adebayo Ibirogba, Engineering and Technology; Dr. David
Ige, Gas and Power; Ms. Aisha Abdurrahman, Commercial and Investment;
Dr. Dan Efebo, Corporate Services; Mr. Ian Udoh, Refining &
Petrochemicals; and Dr. Attahiru Yusuf, Business Development."
The statement noted that the new Group Managing Director of the NNPC,
Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, personally conveyed the Federal Government's
decision to the GEDs.
He expressed gratitude to them for their services to the corporation
and wished them success in their future endeavours.
No replacements were named, but firstclass newsline learnt that four
new group executive director positions had been created and that some
names were already being considered by President Muhammadu Buhari to
fill them.
A source at the corporation gave the new directorates as of Refining
and Engineering, Exploration and Production, Commercial and
Investment, and Finance.
Buhari had a week ago, vowed to fix the oil sector, rid the industry
of rot and recover money stolen by operators in the sector.
On Tuesday, he relieved Dr. Joseph Dawha of his appointment as the GMD
of the national oil firm, replacing him with Kachikwu, who until his
appointment was the Executive Vice Chairman and General Counsel of
Exxon-Mobil (Africa).
The President had in late June dissolved the NNPC board.
The Government, through the NNPC, regulates and participates in the
country's petroleum industry.
The NNPC was founded on April 1, 1977 as a merger of the Nigerian
National Oil Corporation and the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel.
The law that created the firm permits it to manage the joint ventures
between the Federal Government and some foreign multinational
corporations, including Shell, Agip, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Total.
The collaboration with the companies, the Federal Government conducts
petroleum exploration and production.
But industry observers had on several occasions complained that the
corporation lacked supervision, stressing that it had degenerated to a
rent-collector for the government with less attention to transparency
and accountability.
On Tuesday, the New York-based Natural Resources Governance Initiative
canvassed the need to overhaul the management of the country's oil
sales process by the NNPC as top priority for the Buhari-led
administration to stem waste and loss of billions of dollars in
revenue.
The international watchdog said in one of its latest reports that the
NNPC's approach to oil sales was suffering from high corruption risks
and had failed to maximise returns for the nation.
The authors of the NRGI report, led by Aaron Sayne, said, "We find
that management of the NNPC's oil sales has worsened in recent years,
and particularly since 2010. The largest problems stem from the rising
number of ad hoc, makeshift practices the corporation has introduced
to work around its deeper structural problems."
The NNPC receives about one million barrels of oil per day, or almost
half of the country's total production, part of which is sold to its
subsidiary, Pipelines and Product Marketing Company, for the country's
refineries, while a larger volume is sold to traders.
Firstclassnewsline.net