Victor EzejaA former Minister of Education, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, has called for an independent audit of the investment made by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) in the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
The call comes on the heels of revelation by Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, that NNPCL’s investment in his $20 billion refinery was capped at 7.2 per cent instead of the planned 20 per cent stake.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelPrime Business Africa, reports that Dangote had during a media chat last week disclosed that NNPCL failed to fulfil its obligation to scale up the investment to 20 per cent as proposed.
“The agreement was actually 20 per cent which we had with NNPCL, and they did not pay the balance of the money up till last year; then we gave them another extension up till June (2024), and they said that they would remain where they have already paid, which is 7.2 per cent. So NNPC owns only 7.2 per cent, not 20 per cent,” Dangote had stated.
This was confirmed by the NNPCL which said it chose not to make any more refinery investments in the company.
However, reacting to that, Dr Ezekwesili in a post on her X handle on Tuesday said it is the duty of the federal government to launch an independent audit of the Dangote Refinery- NNPC transactions for the public to know the true state of things.
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Commenting on the rift between some regulatory agencies in the oil and gas sector and Dangote Refinery Limited, Ezekwesili wondered why a project of such magnitude would be marred in the level of controversy being witnessed currently.
She said: “How can a project that by all definition attained the stature of a ‘national interest project’ be marred in this depth of embarrassing controversy that is playing out in the full glare of local and international investing community?
“Did the @NigeriaGov not tell us it borrowed $3.3 billion from AFREXIM Bank to take a stake in the Dangote Refinery?”
The former minister recalled that when she served in government under the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, she made it clear to the NNPCL that it could not operate as if it was an independent federation just because it play a pivotal role in the nation’s economy.
She further said the level of opacity with which NNPCL operated then informed their decision to establish the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) to put the national oil company in check in terms of transparency.
“When we were in government, I often told the @nnpclimited leadership that they cannot carry on as though there is a ‘Federal Republic of the NNPCL’ just because they think of themselves as ‘the goose that lays the golden egg.’
“The opacity of the NNPC was reason we took great delight in designing the Multi-Stakeholders Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative @nigeriaeiti in those early 2000s that I pioneered as Chairperson. We went above global minimum voluntary standards of transparency requirements by entrenching ours in an Act that established NEITI as the Transparency Regulator of the Oil and Minerals sector.
“The @NGRPresident owes a duty to Nigerians to immediately use the instrumentality of NEITI to launch an Independent Audit of the Dangote Refinery- NNPC transactions in order to offer the public the true state of play,” Ezekwesili stated, adding that it is in the national interest to do so.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
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