President Muhammadu Buhari is scheduled to meet Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu today,Thursday.
This followed the leak of a memo sent by the minister to the
president, complaining about insubordination and alleged corruption by
the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru.
In his letter, Kachikwu informed the President of Baru’s alleged penchant for sidestepping due process in running the NNPC.
Dated 30 August and titled, “Matters of Insubordination and Lack of
Adherence To Due Process Perpetuated by GMD NNPC-Dr. Baru, the memo
(HMS/MPR/001/Vol.1/100) opened with a complaint about postings within
the corporation done without his knowledge.
“Mr. President, yesterday, like many other Nigerians, I resumed work
confronted by many changes within NNPC. Like many reorganization and
reposting are done since Dr. Baru resumed as GMD, I was never given the
opportunity before the announcements to discuss these appointments. This
is so despite being Minister of State Petroleum and Chairman, NNPC
Board,” Kachikwu wrote.
He also complained that the NNPC Board, which has met monthly since
inauguration by the President, was never briefed of the postings and
appointments.
The Board, he added, has statutory duty to review the appointments.
Its members, Kachukwu noted, got to know of the appointments via the
social media and NNPC press release.
“At a minimum and like other parastatals supervised by me at the
Ministry have continued to do and in compliance with proper governance
standards expected of a multinational oil sector organization,” the
minister stated.
He added that he came into the job with a lot of desire to make
positive changes and has succeeded in making some of the envisaged
transformation.
However, he claimed that he would have been more successful, but for the alleged misbehaviour by Baru.
“I have been on a race to stabilize and move the industry to the next
phase. Timing is critical. The sector is also in a critical state where
only innovative ideas can stop the alarming impact of the fall of oil
prices on national income.
”The innovations that we have developed and started implementing in
the downstream, upstream, policy generation and Niger Delta security
have enabled the sector to aggressively pursue out of the box ideas of
rejuvenating this sector, getting the best yield and increasing our
earnings from Oil and Gas.
“What this means is that parastatals in the Ministry and all CEOs of
these parastatals must be aligned with the policy drive of the
supervising ministry to allow the sector register the growth that has
eluded it for years.
”To do otherwise or to exempt any of the parastatals would be to emplace a stunted growth in the industry,” he complained.
In addition to his complaints, the NNPC Board Chairman asked the
President to, among other things, save the NNPC and the oil industry
from collapse arising from lack of transparency instituted by Baru.
The minister also begged the President to save his office from
further humiliation and disrespect by compelling all parastatals under
it to submit to oversight mandate and proper supervision, which he was
appointed to manage on the President’s behalf.
He equally urged President Buhari to instruct Baru to allow NNPC run properly and report along due process lines to the Board.
Kachikwu called on Buhari to set the right examples by suspending the
recently made appointments in the NNPC and encourage joint presentation
meetings between heads of parastatals and the Minister of State to him
(President) as a way of encouraging better work ethic and ensuring
discipline.