Stakeholders have expressed cautious optimism as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) transits today, insisting that most of the entities under the companies are still loss making sub-subsidiaries.
Going by the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), NNPC had on July 1, 2022, legally transformed into a company that will be regulated under the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA).
While President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to today officially unveil the NNPC, stakeholders are insistent that the move should bring an end to arbitrariness, heavy-handed government control and wasteful practices.
An energy expert, Henry Adigun, is worried that the company is currently keeping thousands of redundant staff, especially those in the refineries. He stated that though the company is transiting, months of transition mode did not address the loss making entities in the company.
An economist, Prof. Segun Ajibola, said it is now important for the NNPC to take courage to imbibe the culture and ethos of a private sector-led business, focusing on the primary objective of profit.
He equally advised the company to allow good corporate governance principles to influence its decisions and actions, adding that suboptimal decisions, which is often influenced by primordial considerations must give way.
“By so doing, we are likely to see NNPC transformed to a more efficiently run company, playing its critical roles of regulating an oil and gas sector that goes to the very heart of the Nigeria’s economy,” Ajibola said.
