The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) last Wednesday said it had secured an emergency $3 billion crude oil repayment loan to stabilise the country’s exchange rates.
Agroup under the aegis of the National Observatory has called for urgent public debate and probe into the questionable Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited's $3 billion ‘Emergency Crude Repayment Loan from AfreximBank.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) last Wednesday said it had secured an emergency $3 billion crude oil repayment loan to stabilise the country’s exchange rates.
According to NNPCL, the money will be used to increase the value of the naira in the international market.
In a statement on Sunday jointly signed by its President Debo Adeniran and Administrative Secretary Omotaje Olawale Saint, the group described it as ridiculous that NNPCL could borrow such funds not for revamping the four moribund refineries.
Titled ‘NNPC Limited $3 Billion Loan Without Concrete Industrial Production Would Fritter Away: Time For Public Probe Of NNPCL,’ the group explained that the loan which ostensibly was to shore up support for the national currency and stabilise our Foreign Exchange Market exposes deep gaps in Nigeria’s corporate governance system and values.
Insisting that what is happening in NNPCL, especially with the new development calls to the fore, a dire necessity for an overhaul of the country’s "political idiosyncrasies, imperatives for a paradigm shift socio-economic orientations and policy thrusts."
"This NNPC Ltd $3 billion loan from Afrexim is gotten in the same ways and manners that Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under suspended Godwin Emefiele conducted its affairs – with utter disrespect to the constitution, disdain for the nation’s sovereignty and arrogant dis-interestedness in the plights of pulverised Nigerian citizens.
"The question on the lips of all sane Nigerians, is what is a private limited liability company, NNPCL doing getting a loan from a sovereign State? Is the NNPC Limited now the Central Bank of Nigeria? This loan does not just usurp the duties of the Central Bank, it is also conducted in a veil of conspiratorial secrecy. A vexatiously notorious trait of the NNPC labyrinth."
It added, "The realities slapping us in the face as a nation is that the NNPC has been grossly unable, really incapacitated, to deliver palpable gains to Nigerians in recent times.
“It has become a burden, a scandalous hive for sharp practices, oil bunkering feeding armed militancy, feathering nests of the reprobate, greedy elites, fuel subsidy scammers, and all sorts of shady deals in favour of global financial institutions, transnational corporations but at the detriment of our national polity and suffering masses.
"We make bold to assert that NNPC-Afrexim $3 billion loan is nothing but a continuation of this gang-raping spree of our collective patrimony. It must be probed. We need urgent Public Debate and Probe of this questionable NNPCL-Afrexim Emergency Crude Repayment Loan now," maintained.”
The organisation, however, noted that NNPCL as a company is derelict in its corporate responsibilities to run a thriving business enterprise generating much-needed foreign exchange revenues for the country, adding that "none of the four refineries in its profile produces a drop of Premium Motor Spirit (Petrol) for the country."
“This is despite over 3,000 workers in its workforce that draw billions in annual wages for doing nothing,” it added.
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