Waiziri Adio, former Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), has urged the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) to maintain transparency in its operations,Daily Trust reports.
Adio made this call in response to the national oil company’s reaction to reports that President Bola Tinubu had approved subsidy payments. President Tinubu had directed the NNPCL to use the 2023 final dividends due to the federation to cover the cost of the subsidy.
However, NNPCL’s Chief Financial Officer, Umar Ajiya, refuted the subsidy claim, stating that the company was merely covering what he termed a “shortfall,” not a subsidy.
In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Adio, who currently serves as the Executive Director of Agora Policy think-tank, criticized NNPCL for what he saw as a semantic game. He questioned why the company was avoiding straightforward language.
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“NNPCL’s evasiveness on the petrol subsidy issue is misleading. They claim it’s not a subsidy but a shortfall or PMS forex differential—essentially the same thing. No one has accused NNPCL of paying subsidies to marketers. But is it even within NNPCL’s mandate to pay subsidies to marketers?”
“Previously, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) was responsible for approving subsidies for marketers and NNPC, while the Ministry of Finance paid marketers after verifying their claims. The only difference with NNPC was that it deducted its subsidy and other claims directly from the crude oil revenues allocated to it for domestic use.”
“It is neither the practice nor the legal responsibility of NNPCL to pay subsidies to marketers. This attempt to address a question that wasn’t asked is, at best, a weak deflection.”
“Claiming there is no subsidy because selling PMS below the landing cost is just an internal transaction between the company and the Federation (which is repaid or offset) is a poor attempt at wordplay that insults everyone’s intelligence. NNPCL should heed this advice: when you’re in a hole, stop digging,” he tweeted.
