By Michael Eboh

Abuja— Despite various allegations of financial impropriety levelled against the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, on a continuous basis, the Federal Government has defended the Corporation, saying it is the most transparent organisation in terms of its processes and accounting. Speaking in an interview in Abuja, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, said the NNPC is today more transparent than it has ever been over the last 25 years.

According to her, it has taken a lot of work for the NNPC even to get to this stage and to open itself up to the sort of forensic audit that was conducted as well. She said, “All in all, I am on one hand pleased that PriceWaterHouseCoopers, PWC, has finished the in depth audit they did. On the other hand, I am very disappointed.

Disappointed that we have come to a stage in the polity and politics of this country where major issues, where we would expect fiscal responsibility in terms of utterances, decisions on issues that are put on a global stage that affects our country in a very negative sense will be put out irresponsibly. “It is of great concern that this sort of fallacies were propounded everywhere, all over the globe and Nigeria was made to look even more corrupt than it was already been touted to be, and this is being done by our own people.”

She blamed the current distrust of the NNPC on the many years of non-disclosure and obscure operating procedures recorded in activities in the oil and gas sector.She noted that there are still a number of issues that needed to be addressed in the oil and gas sector through drastic reforms. She said, “I have said it clearly, over and over that years of non-transparency and opaqueness in the running of the oil and gas sector in this country, and I’m talking about over the last 25 years or so, have of course created some lapses in procedures and processes which various reforms must come into being to take effect and correct. There are no other ways.

“Some of those reforms will have to be somewhat drastic if we really want to reach some reasonable level of accountability and transparency. Hence, we spent so much effort in putting together the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, which is presently languishing in the National Assembly due to various interests and reasons.”