 Mālam Mele Kiari says the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited NMPCL can never declare loss again as he assured that our country found we will begin production by the end of March. I am Bola Oba Anfis. It's plus politics. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited NMPCL will never declare loss again according to the group chief executive officer, Mālam Mele Kiari. He gave the promise in Abuja at a book launch. Kiari also assured that the Pothack or Refinery would begin production by the end of March. He gave the assurance after a meeting with the Senate ad hoc committee investigating the various tone-around maintenance projects of Niger refineries. In the next two weeks production will start. We did mechanical completion of Pothack or that was what we said in December 2023. On the warrior refinery, Kiari said mechanical works had been completed adding that the facility was undergoing the regulatory compliance processes. He however said Cardinal would not be ready until December. Kiari said all the good lines were active adding that over 450,000 barrels had been delivered into the Pothack or Refinery. This topic is Naurangazespa Nekagule. Also joining us is an economist Belong Olajede and a lawyer Arredo Tu. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to plus politics. Welcome to plus politics. How are you, Nick? How are you? Fantastic. I was thinking maybe your device was muted. How would you want to, what would be your initial response to the remarks by Malamele Kiari? Okay, thank you very much. The news that the CEO of NMPC Limited has passed to us, I will say is good news. Good news in the sense that we have been expecting them to come back again with a start date for production. You will recall that last year, towards the end of last year, they came with the news that the protocol refinery had achieved mechanical completion. And we said that mechanical completion does not mean the refinery is now ready. That they were going to go through electrical and instrumentation completion and then test the refinery before getting it ready. I have predicted on a program on this channel, on a different program we should be looking at the first quarter of 2024 to see the first products come off the puhaka refinery. And that is coming to be the case based on this announcement that we have had. And this is because even now I believe that testing is still being carried out at the refinery and whether the date that we have received now, which is the end of March, is going to be feasible, we depend on the result of the testing. The good thing is that they already got a stock of crude oil based on the report issued by the group CEO of NMPC Limited. They have about 450,000 barrels of crude oil in stock. So that will at least take them for about, if they are going at full production of 60,000 barrels, that is going to take them about nine days of production. So it is good news but all fingers crossed. Let us see if this milestone will be achieved. Okay, let me go to your colleague. What would be your initial response to the group chief executive officer of NMPCL stating that one puhaka refinery would be full-fledged operational end of this month and that Nigeria would never resort to importing fuel today? Well, it is a good woman. It is going to bring about the expected production output that will serve the needs of Nigerians who are really yearning for price reduction in fuel because whatever and however this is going to come up with the end product, the end means of all Nigerians, what Nigerians are expecting of is the price reduction and we believe that with the lookup production, the whole number of chains of production will be cut off from lifting to demolition and all that importation will be off and that on its own should be able to have a kind of a more about solution to the expectation of power. And now for these issues, end up to become more political. They become more political statements. If care is not taken, it becomes more political statements because before now we have gotten a news report that puhaka refinery is already working. Now puhaka refinery is to work at the end of March. There is no need to make space. Let me quickly interject. There was no time they said puhaka refinery was working. They said as of December 2023 that they completed the mechanical production system of puhaka refinery and they tested it. And it was also in the news that there were other areas of the system to be done and that until say the end of the first quarter of 2024 puhaka refinery production would not be starting. And I guess at this juncture there seems to be a degree, a dint of consistency but it's not over until it's over until I see full production. I can say they fulfilled all righteousness. But there seems to be a degree of consistency from what was said in December to what is said now. Yes, yes. It's to get the information right. The fact that the puhaka refinery mechanically is due to work at full capacity by March what we are saying is that Nigerians who are so high and we cannot be running on these projections all we want to see is that by tomorrow the day we are run. Okay, I can feel you. I really can understand where you are coming from. Mr. Ali Jede, are you on? Yeah, good evening. Good evening Mr. Ali Jede. It's just fair to you to let you at least give us your initial response to the claims and I'm using S after claim here. To the claims by the group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL that in the next two weeks a puhaka refinery would be running at full operational capacity and that it believes that soon enough Nigeria would not have to import petroleum products anymore. Your response sir? Well, two weeks will come anyway. They promise two weeks. The problem in my opinion has been the communications regarding the two of the people that the refinery is reproducing in Nigeria. Without the mechanical conditions and the entire time we have to work on this and when it was time to operate it has become disgraceful. We need a little bit of criticism that has shifted and that has shifted and that has shifted. I think this is disgraceful. Someone has to get away about why exactly this refinery Mr. Lahiri, you know what I guess from your opinion and your opinion of the gentleman who spoke before you it is obvious to me that beyond the organic or personal problem that NNPCL has NNPCL may also be battling some public communications problem because if maybe because we function from the newsroom many of the things that are making you people to be disillusioned many of those things were quite well understood by somebody like me in December they said and the gentleman who started one of the guests one of your colleagues who started this show was also very particular about the fact that in December they only said they were going to do mechanical completion but from your remark now and the gentleman before you it does seem to me that NNPCL needs to help its public communications game because if educated and enlightened people like you don't quite understand them well I guess that is instructing the disillusionment or the distrub that you seem to be expressing and the gentleman too expressed how would you respond to that? Yeah, the communication needs to improve I wasn't knowing like that at all so it is easy kind of completion of mechanical production I don't know about that the same the communication needs to improve it needs to present itself as transfer as needed otherwise everything called creativity will be totally lost in the future so in the future that is what you want to know okay, let me go to let me go to one of your colleagues I'll come back to you I'll come back to you okay yeah, I will too okay it doesn't seem it doesn't seem that yeah, it doesn't seem that I can hear you from the street the three of you are not particularly impressed even when you were starting you said in so much as there may seem at least deducing from your remarks that in so much as there may seem to be consistency what they said in December and the date they have given for full operational this thing but you still want to wait so the element of doubt that didn't of you know the famous the famous predisposition is still there until I see the mark in his hand I'm not going to buy the story so what is this protein that if I may ask well, you know we have to look at the nucleus issues surrounding NMPC you know not that we ought to be on the level we are now as a fifth largest so either we don't know the rating that we had the moment because we are just producing nations without capacity for local production that is very because for the past 15 years on now for the past 15 years on now the NMPC was deliberately killed all are for refinery whereby there were payment for turnaround maintenance for this same investment that budget have been amount for yearly and there are payment for staff yearly so for the past 10 to 15 years this same structure that the new administration is trying to make sure that it works it's not that maybe we are to clap for them even if it works because they made us so far long before now it was a deliberate ploy in order to make NMPC a more important internal structure and encourage importation importation was a decoy for corruption so if we are not now going to be leaving that I don't think those that are coming from that I'll come back to you but I want you whilst I'm taking the opinions of your two other colleagues I want you to also be thinking around the fact that NMPC may also be a victim of the institutionalization of corruption in our political system because that's very honest of ourselves NMPC I will come back to you because NMPC NMPC is basically maybe a worst case scenario but NMPC is basically suffering what we see in proto bars in Brazil and in the Mexican oil company these oil companies especially state-owned oil companies may be buying Saudi Alamco today Saudi Alamco declared the profit of 1.2 billion US dollars which was reported to be more than the cumulative the cumulative profits of the four major western oil companies the shelves of this world the the shelves of this world so are we now in a situation where we are just suffering what state-owned oil companies essentially buying Saudi Alamco what they normally manifest ne kabune thank you very much I think there is also a big misconception by Nigerians about the status of the NMPC even the NMPC itself carries itself as if they are a regulator of the oil industry so a lot of Nigerians actually think that the NMPC is a regulator of the oil industry and you find the NMPC making industry wide statements like the last time the chairman of the NMPC was talking about producing 2 million barrels which is actually Nigerian's production the truth of the matter is that like you have said the NMPC is a business the NMPC is a business just like child run is a business share is a business total is a business in the oil sector and this business is owned by the government and unfortunately in Nigeria institutions are very weak and because institutions are very weak government enterprises don't do well is not only NMPC we have seen it before Niter was never doing well until the MTS and Co came in the steep plants are all dead there is no one steep plant owned by the government that is working today the same thing with electricity the transmission company of Nigeria owned by the government is about to make in the electricity sector it is just the case that when government enterprises in Nigeria are being badly managed that is a reflection of what they are because in Nigeria it is a successful business first you need to ensure that recruitment into that business is by merit in Nigeria nobody knows how people are recruited into the NMPC so recruitment in the NMPC is by patronage even the leadership of the NMPC is by patronage and the NMPC knows that as a government business they can afford to keep the refunds to be dead for like my colleague said they can still be paying salaries all family workers and nothing will happen you know that kind of thing will never happen in Shell it will never happen in Total or IG or mobile and also we will compare NMPC to the likes of Saudi and Ramco the world's number one oil company Petrobras in Brazil Petronas in Malaysia and all of that we are not comparing the same systems because in those nations the institutions are strong leadership is strong when they have a business they run the business based on business ethics in Nigeria anything government is anything that goes you know so the NMPC if president Nipu actually wants to have a solution the NMPC is to privatize the company I know Nick I cannot fault the logic of your submission but even like that look at in Brazil the case of Navajato the car wash this thing that ultimately culminated in the incumbent president of Brazil spending about 2 years clause in jail after his first after his first tenure look at the rate at which PetroMex in Mexico punching below his weight when it comes when the basic parameters of measuring efficiency are used unlike what we stated even now that they have just changed the nomenclature of NMPC to NMPC limited we all know that is a state-owned enterprise and a state-owned enterprise still be holding to the political class and the political class from the legislators in the national assembly even in the days of the military it was worse but you know now on that democratic dispensation from the legislators in the national assembly to the president and the presidency like we already stated people in NMPC are beholding to these political politicals so how do we expect efficiencies in such circumstance I'm just thinking aloud in view of your very very resoundingly convincing submission how would you respond to well I want to draw our viewers attention to the fact that it's not about government ownership alone the NLNG that is the Nigerian liquefied natural gas company in Boney it's also government-owned the difference between NLNG government-owned and NNPC with the limited avada that has changed nothing which is also government-owned the management so here are two government-owned enterprises the NLNG is managed by the private sector who also have part ownership the NNPC is managed by the government and you can see the results the NLNG is delivering humongous dividends running into billions of dollars to government office every year the NNPC has constituted a dream pipe on government revenues and the NNPC is taking a share of joint venture crude oil production on behalf of government selling it, spending it and then it is what is left they will now go and put in the federation account what kind of business is that a business that has allowed its families to die is not producing much oil is not depending on crude oil that is produced on behalf of the federal government of Nigeria to pay in safe salaries and they are paying for salaries let me go to one of your colleagues Mr. Lajadeh Mr. Lajadeh are you still on? okay let me go back to Ale are there two yes there are two as it is how would you want to respond to the submissions of your colleagues who believe that the political partnership that defines the the composition of the hierarchy of NNPC the political partnership that defines the operational methodology of NNPC relating to another local example perfect example, LMNG look what do you expect of such an institution how would you want to respond to the view of your last opinion before I am not totally aligning on the premise of privatizing NNPC at the end of the day we will come back to lay our dreams the genco and the power sector have not been a kind of fixed with issues the major problem we have is the fact that we deliberately made our institution unworkable we believe that since corruption is habitat in every organization of government definitely government must not work that ideology will not make a country go even if we bring the best of the best privatized private company to manage our oil and gas sector if care is not properly taken we end up in the belly of the lion so I wouldn't want this to be done what I am appealing is the fact that let it in as much as NNPC has been incorporated like a private organization not necessarily a regulator now is now selling and buying just like every other oil and gas firm in the country just like chef is operational so the the unfortunate thing is the fact that the structure arrangement the internal administrative structure arrangement is confusing in NNPC a structure that relies mainly on the entire staff base are being paid by government and you want to pretend to rule that you are a private firm there is something missing somewhere there will be lack of accountability and transparency if the government was NNPC let them they still need for regulatory body to look into how this is about current management we need a total of all of the current management I am not still yet comfortable considering the corruption of the present management of NNPC you can never get anything out of the nagarate of this out of NNPC NNPC NNPC gave a very very practical example that cannot be discounted is just a post NNPC a state-owned enterprise with RNG which is another state-owned enterprise but because of the I percent of the private sector partners in the management and the operational operational machinery of NNNG NNNG gives Nigeria billions of dollars every year while for so many years NNPC was just a shell entity that was that was a property Nigeria's return from the services provided by the private entity that were instructive all from Nigeria and all the operations were NNPC how to be adding value they were not adding value and they were paying operatives they were paying people years after years they were producing nothing in the refineries how would you want to respond to that in view of your last submission well I still want to reiterate that even at NNNG the way NNNG production base was managed was as a result of the of the capacity of the management structure itself the same management structure of joint venture with private sector analysis that NNPC is currently having but because there were other fragmentation that is expecting the success of NNPC which is purely deliberate and for the correct management to still be here you need we have good minds in Nigeria don't everything that maybe there cannot be any good thing coming out of NNPC but for the correct management which are still to provide the records of the financial audited report for the past 10-15 years and you expect them to deliver a new refinery by March and you still want that to give the best of services to Nigeria there is a lot hidden that the president needs to let us understand I am not totally I am not fighting a NNPC but I believe is management ought to be investigated now I will come to that I will come to you again for that I really want to at least respond to the fact that Darla is not very enthusiastic about the idea of NNPC being fully operationally privatized so there are a couple of things that need to set the record straight first of all I really my co-panelist says the same joint venture management structure that the NLNG has is the same that is in the NNPC that is not correct the joint venture arrangement which the NNPC has with the international oil companies is different so I can give you an example practically the NNPC joint venture is owned 60% by the government and 40% by the joint USA but it is the joint that is managing that joint venture so those who are running that joint venture are joint employees and by the way they are agility mostly so it is not about we will be here because these are agility with private sector background they are running the joint venture differently and that is the same way the arrangement will share with total removal runs the international oil companies are running the joint ventures the NNPC is being owned by Nigerians who are appointed by government they are not private sector driven Melek Kari who is the group CEO of the NNPC is appointed by the government government does not appoint the MD of share or the MD of Chevron or the MD of NLNG so I think that is the where my co-panelist got his facts mistop and secondly we are not talking about the management to foreigners the managing director of share in Nigeria is a Nigerian the managing director of NNPC I mean NLNG is a Nigerian in fact the previous managing director the immediate partner is my very good friend we work together in share the game is that the the NNPC the NNPC are currently constituted is not going to deliver any results is the same way that NLNG never deliver any results is the same way that the steep plants all the steep plants in Nigeria today are not delivery results this is not about the NNPC is about the fact that government is in charge just like government is managing every other thing that same attitude of government we translate into what these companies are all about now I also want to make another point here you know the oil industry is made up of upstream and downstream these refineries that we are talking about now is the downstream side of of the oil industry have we asked the question about what is happening in the upstream the upstream is very friendly in the hands of the private sector friendly they also are producing oil for Nigeria and private sector and because they are private sector we have never heard that we think back to 1950 when we discovered oil till 2024 has there been any day where we say Nigeria's kudoa production is zero that means we didn't produce a barrel of kudoa per day answer is no and what is the reason for that the management of the upstream is in the hands of the private sector and what we say private sector we are not talking about has to be with people Nigerians have developed the capacity now and they are running this thing so if we continue hoping that an NNPC that is being controlled by a national assembly that you saw the way they were behaving as school children the other day a government that is more interested in foreign trips and all of that that NNPC is going to do well we could have a swear to have been hoping that night tail was going to give us phones until the MTS came to rescue us ok let me go back to aree for the wealth of the butter aree this is not supposed to be is not supposed to be a contestation of ideas between you and your colleague but you seem the two of you seem to be proceeding different ideas about how NNPC could be could be revamped and be made to serve Nigerians properly or to contribute is rightful this thing to the Nigerian coffers I would want to respond to Nick's submission is aree there ok we seem to have lost aree oh Nick Nick those watching this evening are with the general to this position of Nigerians ideologically the general abhorrence that Nigerians have to when you mention the word or the phrase private sector when you mention the phrase or the word privatization when you mention commercialization and I think Nigerian believes it's not going to be a it's going to be a speculative against the Nigerian interest and ironically just as you are methodically itemized the things and the entities that are working to add value to us to our quality of life our institutions that are mainly run by private sectors how would you want to respond to the fact that the Nigerians listening to you today may be because it's not a position it may be one of those that they may they may headhunt to come around MFPC if caught are to be taken out of the composition of his management and his staffing just thinking aloud now you are actually very correct that Nigerians are always apprehensive about privatization about private sector running things and things like that you can even tell you that private sector are capitalists and they will come and they will come and cheat us they will do this and they will not give us value but I like to draw Nigerians attention to telecoms it's a very good example Nigerians who were old enough to know what happened during 90 days you discover that there was no phone there was simply no phones so because there was short supply of phones there was also to racketeering with phones 90 would give you a line to your house they would divert that line to a business center and the business center will be making calls and collecting money from people and the government solution to that was they will set up tax policies on business centers headed by young majors they will carry soldiers and they will be shutting down business centers Nigerians who were old enough will remember this and I tell people one thing that I married my wife my wife was in Abuja when I married her and I was working for the oil industry in worry so when she relocated to worry to meet me my wife had a not nine not which was 90s what you call mobile phone of today my wife will have not nine not worry I, Nika Gule returned my wife's not nine not to Abuja and sold it for 150,000 Naira more than 20 years ago 150,000 and the person I sold it to was a middle man he was going to sell it on for 250,000 which was money that will buy you five to combo cars as at that time that is government providing something for you that is government providing government providing something for you that is not there how much is for now but Nik the most common example that the anti capitalist idea looks the most common examples that they use now the discos and the discos and the jemcos the jemcos are even performing but unfortunately the discos are not the best pure pure this thing for privatization in the power generation power distribution industry given the example of what about the discos can address that very shortly knowing that probably we don't have the time I mean we can have another session to talk about the electricity sector why is not working why the privatization is not working because as our viewers we know electricity is in three stages there is generation there is transmission which carries the electricity from the point of which is still at the end of the government exactly and then there is distribution now the reason why the electricity privatization is not working is because generation is largely okay generation was sold to serious minded business people the Tony Lumelous and the Thedolas of this world they have the capital and the expertise to expand capacity but the transmission which is the one that carries the electricity is in the hands of government and the government is in on it government does not have the money to expand the capacity and look generation cannot generate what transmission cannot carry and distribution cannot distribute what transmission has not given them I cannot show you that if president Thinibu takes the wise decision of leasing that transmission out even if it is not ultra privatization leasing it out to the private sector who will come and expand the capacity the electricity sector in Nigeria will start booming because it is a bottleneck transmission is a bottleneck and then and then distribution was not done right when people compared the discourse with what is happening in telecoms I tell them it is not correct you know why MTN AT Salat all of these companies that got licenses for telecoms were already telecoms companies operating elsewhere they had the experience, they had the expertise they had the money they had the technology tell me one company in the distribution one disco there was already an existing power sector operator before they got a disco license none absolutely none of them no it was it was the party party arrangement exactly the discourse were giving to politically exposed persons majority of them missed out on the privatization of the telecoms and they thought the discourse was where they were not coming on the bazaar you know they don't have the money to expand the capacity even ordinary meters they cannot even have money to buy the meters so you know where the problem is now let me tell Nigeria what the problem is before the privatization or the so called privatization of electricity there was only one NEPA in Nigeria one NEPA that was doing everything that NEPA had a single managing director and had a single set of executives they were distributing about four to five thousand megawatts of electricity now after privatization we have about 10, 12 or more companies in the generation with 12, 13 managing directors transmission as a managing director then we have about nine or so discourse each of them we managing director executive directors offices and all of that how much power are all these companies generating and supplying 3,000 megawatts so the cost is rising as to nomically the output is not rising the output is falling and that is why the unit cost that is being forced down the throat of Nigeria let me quickly pop over to your colleague he is back on now he is around I think I think we may still be having a situation with Alex Alex connection Nick yes go ahead to wrap up your point and we make it a day to go ahead and report my points for the fans are you back Alex yes yes you must have been listening to your colleague he seems to to be taking a diametrically a post position to your anti privatization anti commercialization how do you want to respond to some of the points he has made you know you have said it all the discos and gencos are a bad to privatization and I want to reiterate that we can not affect the energy so that we don't lose the meat of our matter is the fact that the the sharing formula between the private sector that's on the offshore and on the onshore but be that may go and look at the analysis that we brought out maybe during one of our press conferences it goes there over multi trillion dollars have gone down the drain and that is what I am now saying there is no way anyhow that you are going to bring private sector coming no matter how damaged you are during this thing if you still you still going to rest on government policy because the government generated revenue from the private sector so the government cannot wheel off his power whatever is going to be part of it because you are taking example of telecommunication telecommunication is different from all like that we are talking about what telecommunication energy driven generated if if if if if if Saudi could privatize some of his some of his share will get why would somebody like you find the idea of letting organic privatization in some respect happen to NNPC even when we have a a paper privatization NNPC ironically or paradoxically is now NNPC limited and a limited limited ability company to the best of my understanding is ostensibly a private company but you seem to be you seem to be happy with the Kimura the Kimura that NNPC is now on the one hand is claiming to be a private a private animal but on the other hand we know we know that NNPC is just like a power starter of the government and all the political technologies all the inanities the corruption such entities are very manifest in his operation how would you respond to that sir yes you know I will still retrace the fact that you know is a mixed breed of corruption between the NNPC and the Kimura who pursues this see as I did that NNPC is still an issue if you are the fact that NNPC is intending to bring up the worker worker refinery worker refinery all this out to the simultaneously due together but I don't just want to be don't lose the myth of the matter that by the end of March we will see what NNPC will manifest my own agitation is a fact that let there be total overhaul if it is incorporated NNPC is more or less a private entity that is a relation we are talking about NNPC have ruled agar stand presently let's get up I'll come back to you to Nick Nick how would you want to so that's where we have to just talk about about how it deals with privatization my extinguish that about how we wrapped it up let's give Nick the opportunity to Nick how would you want to to close it at least for this episode okay so to close it I just want to say before I close to say that privatization does not make government to lose its power actually that is the way it's supposed to be government is meant to be the regulator why businesses are to run business so the regulating power of government is still there now NNPC that is the power of government to regulate the industry it doesn't mean that government will lose any power at all instead we are going to see efficiency minister of communication told Nigeria that telephone was not for the poor and that was because government was mismanaging telecoms through night care now we can't say that again that telephone is not for the poor everybody has a GSM in their hand now to close it on the oil industry I want to to set the expectations of Nigeria's right protocol refinery this protocol refinery is the oldest one is the old one it is 60,000 barrels of kudo e per day is the smallest of the NNPC refineries the one that is next door to it in protocol there is 150,000 60,000 barrels can produce only about 1 million liters of petrol maximum 2 million liters Nigeria is currently talking about 30, 35, 40 million liters of consumption per day depending on whose figures you are listening to so this thing is not going to change anything much so the euphoria that is gritting this thing I want Nigeria to manage the expectation we will continue to import petrol because 1.2 million barrels I mean liters per day is not going to change the game Nick we have to go at least on one point you and I seem to have agreed and that is the disillusionment about the projection of NNPC that they would they would be fully operational not that you don't believe them but you want to wait and see and I guess the two of you have also agreed in some respects that at least the cost would be marginally lower not tangibly not something that would be substantially felt at the at the pump price yet when I want to say thank you for your contributions you have been wonderful value adders we respect your seemingly ideological differences but you have enriched the show today thank you thank you very much and good night to our viewers and we will see you again thank you very much this is where we wrap it for today I am Bola Oba have a good evening