Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has stated that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has only remitted N20,000 so far this year (2022).
In an interview on the occasion of the seventh edition of KadInvest, an annual event organised by the Kaduna State Investment Promotion Agency (KADIPA), where El-Rufai made this revelation, the governor advised the Federal Government to quit doing business with the state-owned oil and gas company.
He said nothing has changed with the commercialisation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company in July 2022, adding that NNPC is Nigeria’s biggest problem and should be privatised.
He cited an example of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited which achieved nothing until the private sector came in and revolutionalised the telecoms business.
“I am giving this example so that when I say government should get out of oil and gas, people should not think it is crazy; it is not. There is no reason why the Nigerian Government should still be in the oil and gas sector. It should just get out, it has failed. By every measure it has failed.
“This year, NNPC has not brought N20,000 to the federation account. We are living on taxes. It is PPTs, royalties, income tax, and VAT that is keeping this country going because NNPC claims that subsidy has taken all the oil revenues. I don’t believe it,” El-Rufai noted.
How much money is NNPC making?
For the first time in its 44 years of existence, NNPC disclosed its profit, saying it made a profit after tax (PAT) of N674 billion for the year ended 2021.
According to Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), NNPC Limited, who made this disclosure, the N674 billion profit is an increase of 134.8% when compared to the figure recorded in 2020.
“Today I’m happy to announce that the Board of NNPC has approved 2021 audited fin. statements & NNPC has progressed to a new performance level, from N287 billion profit in 2020 to N674 billion profit after tax in 2021, climbing higher by 134.8 percent YoY profit growth,” he said.
