Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Tuesday, announced that it has become an EITI supporting company, joining a group of over 65 extractives companies, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), commodity traders, financial institutions and industry partners who commit to observing the EITI’s supporting company expectations.
NNPC made the announcement on their official social media handles on Tuesday 18th August 2020.
EITI in a statement released on their website, said the Board Chair, Rt Hon. Helen Clark, welcomed the company’s commitment to the EITI, saying:
“NNPC plays a vital role in Nigeria’s economy.
Joining the EITI as a supporting company is a welcome step in the NNPC’s journey toward achieving greater transparency and to help ensure that Nigeria’s citizens benefit from their natural resource wealth.”
Also, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning and former EITI Board member, Zainab Ahmed, while speaking on the partnership, stressed the importance of ensuring that natural resource wealth contributes to sustainable development. She said:
“Increased transparency of Nigeria’s national oil company revenues is contributing to improvements in our country’s domestic resource mobilisation efforts.”
Established in 1977, NNPC has grown to become the largest asset holder across Nigeria’s oil and gas industry value chain. Traditionally an oil and gas entity, it is transitioning towards becoming an integrated energy company with an interest in power generation and transmission.
The state-owned company has recently taken measures to become more transparent. In June 2020, it published audited accounts for 20 of its subsidiaries.
NNPC also publishes monthly financial and operations report on its website, in national dailies and online media as part of efforts to be accountable. It is working with Nigeria EITI (NEITI) on an action plan to routinely disclose information and it currently publishes some of the data required by the 2019 EITI Standard on its website, the company confirm.
According to the statement published on their website announcing the partnership, they added that these disclosures, demonstrate NNPC’s commitment to its journey to becoming a more transparent national oil company. Adherence to the EITI supporting company expectations will give further impetus to NNPC’s corporate vision of greater transparency and accountability.
Three areas in which there is scope for advancing transparency are revenues and payments to the government, contracts governing petroleum exploration and production and consolidated group-level financial statements.
Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director at NNPC, affirmed NNPC commitment to the EITI:
“Becoming an EITI supporting company aligns with NNPC’s corporate vision and principles of transparency, accountability and performance excellence. Our partnership with NEITI and the company strengthens our commitment towards commodity trading transparency, contract transparency and systematic disclosure of revenues and payments.
We are on a journey towards greater transparency and look forward to deepening our collaboration with the EITI to further this work,” he said.
NEITI Executive Secretary, Waziri Adio, commended NNPC’s move to support the EITI:
“NNPC joining them as a supporting company is a major inflection point in the quest for transparency – for the company, for Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, and for the country as a whole. This is so given how critical NNPC is to the sector and to the country.
NEITI welcomes this bold commitment. We will continue to work and walk with NNPC to translate its espoused commitments to transparency and accountability into concrete and sustained actions and results.”