NNPC targets higher oil income
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said it would step up efforts in contributing to Nigeria’s revenue, especially the implementation of its 2020-2022 medium term fiscal frameworks.
A statement from the corporation stated it had commenced extensive conversations on this with the Budget Office of the Federation.
The statement signed by the Group General Manager Public of NNPC, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, noted that its Group Managing Director, Mallam Mele Kyari, and his top management team meet with a team from the Budget Office of the Federation led by its Director General, Mr. Ben Akabueze.
Kyari, at the meeting, said the forum marked the beginning of an extensive collaboration with the budget office to harmonize strategies at ensuring optimization of resources for improved revenue generation for the federation by NNPC.
He noted that NNPC as the reported main enabler of the Nigerian economy, would work with the Budget Office to improve transparency and enhance prevailing sanity in the reporting of oil and gas revenue remittances to the federation account.
According to Kyari, as the entity entrusted with the mandate of superintending over Nigeria’s vast hydrocarbon resources on behalf of its government and people, the NNPC must be open and accountable to all stakeholders.
The statement equally quoted Akabueze to have said that it was important for his team to meet with the NNPC management to talk more on all issues and possible fiscal scenarios ahead of the 2020-2023 budgetary frameworks.
Akabueze, explained that the Budget Office would anticipate fruitful deliberations with the NNPC strategy team in the weeks and months ahead to smoothen the process of achieving a win-win fiscal regime.
He further noted that despite the push to diversify Nigeria’s revenue base, the oil and gas sector remained the main earner of foreign exchange for her.
Meanwhile, the latest NNPC operations report indicated that proceeds from domestic crude oil sales by the corporation which were remitted to the FAAC has steadily dropped from N189,145,117,352 in May 2018 to N32,420,189,756 in May 2019.
The report noted that in May 2018, NNPC remitted N189,145,117,352, it however increased to 205,107,633,323 in June 2018, and dropped to N84,414,964,018 in July 2018, before further dropping to N84,279,132,539 in August 2018, and then picking to N 103,760,125,996 in September of the same. In October, it rose to N120,085,350,995, before dropping again to N92,557,583,465 in November.
In December 2018, it rose to N111,260,536,547, and then further to N153,013,309,349 in January 2019, N175,708,784,131 in February 2019, N174,924,282,515 in March 2019, before dropping again to N51,657,295,374 in April, and N32,420,189,756 in May 2019.
