NNPC GMD Office To Be Scrapped Off

The office of the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is set to be scrapped, it has been gathered.

A top source who gave the indication said the scrapping of the NNPC GMD office which will take effect as the New Year opens is part of ongoing measures to unbundle the corporation to make its operations more effective and result oriented.

The competent source said functions of the office of the GMD will accordingly be handed over to the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, who in turn reports to President Muhammadu Buhari who doubles as the Petroleum Minister.

Prior to his appointment as Minister of State, Dr Kachikwu was the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, appointed by President Buhari.

Until his appointment, Dr. Kachikwu was the Executive Vice Chairman and General Counsel of Exxon Mobil (Africa).

Dr. Kachikwu is a First Class Graduate of Law from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and the Nigerian Law School. He also holds Masters and Doctorate Degrees in Law from the Harvard Law School.

He started his working career with the Nigerian/American Merchant Bank before moving on to Texaco Nigeria Limited from where he joined Exxon-Mobil.

Kachikwu has already been mandated to execute the unbundling process to prepare the ground for the scrapping, the source said.

The government of President Muhammadu Buhari has repeatedly insisted on need to cut down the cost of governance to eliminate waste and achieve speedy service delivery.

It would be recalled that former President Goodluck Jonathan created a new office of Deputy Group Managing Director of the NNPC.

The then special adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Reuben Abati, who announced the new office named the appointment of Bernard Otti, the then Group Executive Director (Finance and Accounts) as the new occupier of the office.

Under Jonathan’s arrangement, Otti, combined his role as Deputy Group Managing Director with his responsibility as Group Executive Director, Finance and Accounts, of the corporation.

The creation of the new office was a departure from the usual structure of the executive management of the NNPC, which usually have a group managing director at the top of the pyramid, with groups executive directors in charge of the eight directorates of the corporation.

The eight directorates included those for Exploration & Production; Refineries & Petrochemical; Engineering and Technical; Gas & Power; Commercial & Investment; Corporate Services; Finance & Accounts and Business Development.

According to Abati, the creation of the new office was in furtherance of efforts by the Federal Government under Jonathan to transform the NNPC into a commercially-driven entity.

He said the new office of Deputy GMD was expected to help strengthen the corporate governance structure of the NNPC as well as help ensure value for money and returns on investment increasingly become key factors in all operational decisions.

Peoples Daily had reported that the Federal Government was set to carry out the final phase of the restructuring of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

The restructuring would result in the Corporation being unbundled into four components, while about 1,100 of its staff in Headquarters would be eased out.

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, who doubles as the Group Managing Director of the NNPC stated this while speaking at a town hall meeting in Abuja.

He said that he had received President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval to begin the final phase of the restructuring of the NNPC.

”The unbundling process would see the NNPC broken down into four key components, namely: the upstream company, downstream company, the midstream company, which is gas and power marketing, and the refining group holding company” , Kachikwu said.

According to the minister, a major aspect of the restructuring plan would be in making the Headquarter operations cost effective by reducing over half of the present 2,200 Headquarter staff and re-assigning them to subsidiaries with a view to making them more effective.

However, in a press briefing later that same day, Kachikwu denied saying 1, 100 staff of the NNPC would be sacked.

Kachikwu also said that the Federal Government is considering and developing new models of financing for the oil and gas industry because it no longer has the resources to fund the sector.

“The country does not have the sort of resources to continue to fund the oil industry. As we go upstream, we are going to begin to see a lot of innovative financing mechanism to provide funding for the oil industry.”

On the country’s refineries, the minister said the final decision on the fate of the refineries would likely emerge in January 2016. Adding that, this would be followed by the adoption of a price modulation mechanism that would see the Federal Government setting a price ceiling of between N87 and N97 per litre for petrol.