In a statement issued in Abuja by the spokesperson of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Kennie Obateru on Thursday, the Group Managing Director of the corporation, Mele Kyari, said the publication of the audited financial statements of NNPC facilitated the recent financing for the revamp of the Port Harcourt refinery.
The oil firm’s boss who said the corporation was able to get speedy funding for the refinery as a result of the publication of its financial statements gave an assurance that the sum of $1.5bn would be expended on the revamp of the Port Harcourt refinery.
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There had been concerns as to why the government would spend such funds on a refinery that had been dormant for several years. The statement read in part, “Kyari stated that the publication of the corporation’s audited financial statements has significantly improved investors’ confidence in the corporation.
“And it was instrumental to the speedy facilitation of the financing agreement for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt refinery by the African Export Import Bank.”
Kyari who spoke at NNPC’s Abuja headquarters while playing host to the management team of the Nigeria Extractive Industries and Transparency Initiative led by its Executive Secretary, Ogbonaya Orji was quoted as saying, “Since we opted to disclose our financial statements, the speed with which we close financial transactions has been monumental.
“We now close deals at a quarter of the time that we used to do them and that is very critical.”
According to him, the NNPC would work with NEITI. He therefore urged the executive secretary and members of his management team to avail themselves of details of the corporation’s operations, especially the monthly engagement with the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee.
In his contribution, Orji described NNPC as a key partner of the agency whose role in the industry was clearly on the orbit. The NEITI boss stated that there was need to build on the existing relationship with a view to deepening the culture of transparency in the oil and gas sector of the Nigerian economy.
