Senate Threatens to Jail NNPCL CEO, Others Over ₦‎12tr Turnaround Maintenance

The Senate on Wednesday threatened to recommend the sack and possible jailing of the Group Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, and heads of government agencies in the oil sector over the turnaround maintenance on which N12 trillion has been spent without tangible results.

The upper chamber specifically threatened to sack heads of agencies directly involved in the turnaround maintenance (TAM) projects of Nigerian refineries.

It also revealed that it had records of over $592 million, €4.8 million and £3.4 million spent between 2010 to date on the TAM, yet none of the refineries had refined a drop of oil.

The Senate Ad-hoc Committee investigating the various Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) projects of Nigerian refineries, issued the threat during an interactive session with NNPCL management and other executives of the oil sector.

Some of the agencies invited, whose chief executive officers failed to show up, but sent representatives, included Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and their subsidiaries.

The Chairman of the Ad-hoc committee, Senator Isa Jibrin (Kogi East), noted that so much had been heard on the turnaround, and so much had been spent on operational materials on the refineries without results.

“We will ask for refund and dismissal of all the chief executives involved in the Turn Around Maintenance”, he said.

Senator Jibrin said that for weeks, they had been asking for documents, which had not been given by the oil companies, a development, he noted, that created suspicions.

Jibrin said: “We sent them an invitation more than two weeks ago requesting for documents and the documents have not been released after two weeks. So, we want the chief executives to be present.

“More worrisome is that between 2010 and 2020, the sum of N4.8 trillion was said to have been spent as operational expenses. How do you incur operational expenses that have to do with purchase of raw materials and similar expenses on factories that are moribund? How do we come about operational expenses? We need to know.”