Senate dares NNPCL GMD, Mele, with sack

The Senate ad hoc committee investigating the turnaround maintenance projects of Nigerian refineries, in an interaction with management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and other executives of the oil sector, dared the NNPCL Group Managing Director, Kyari Mele, threatening to push for his sack after over N12 trillion had been spent on the countries refineries yet they are not working.

Chairman of the ad hoc committee, Senator Isa Jibrin, representing Kogi East, decried that much had been heard on the turnaround and much had been spent on operational materials on the refineries, yet, they are not working.
The Senate pointed out the over N12 trillion has been spent on Turn Around Maintenance of the refineries since 2010. The lawmakers insisted that there are records of over $592 million, €4.8 million, and £3.4 million spent between 2010 to date on TAM, yet none of the refineries is operational.

The Senate committee, therefore, directed the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and the subsidiaries to submit relevant documents on the turnaround maintenance projects of Nigerian refineries.

Jibrin declared: “We will ask for refund and dismissal of all the chief executives involved in the turnaround maintenance.”
Jibrin maintained: “We sent them an invitation more than two weeks ago requesting documents and the documents have not been released after two weeks. So, we want the chief executives to be present.

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

“These are issues that Nigerians want to know; they want solutions to all these leakages. We know they are leakages. We know and we will not hesitate to escalate it to the highest possible level, including the possibility of refund and outright dismissal of some of the heads of some of these agencies and possibly go to jail.”