BudgIT Commended NNPC For Publishing Subsidiaries’ Financials For The First Time

BudgIT has commended the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, for publishing the audited accounts of its subsidiaries and business divisions for the first time.

The corporation was also eulogised for launching the OpenData segment on its website, as a measure to promote transparency in its financial operations. There is no doubt that the Mele-Kyari led NNPC management has blazed the trail by making the audited report of all NNPC’s subsidiaries available online.

For the past four years, BudgIT, through the Extractives Consultative Forum and with support from the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), has been engaging key oil and gas stakeholders annually; including officials from Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Department of Petroleum Resources, Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Civil Society Organisations and private individua

A financially viable and transparent NNPC is pivotal to the Nigerian Economy as the government still largely depends on revenue from oil to finance its budgets.

Over the years, BudgIT has consistently requested that the NNPC should make its audited report available to citizens in addition to publishing its monthly financial and operations reports, to further ensure transparency and accountability. In our last policy brief on NNPC reforms titled: “ NNPC: The burden of Africa’s Oil and Gas Giant ”, making NNPC’s audit report public was one of the 7 recommendations for reforms we put forward.

“Launching an OpenData segment on its official website is a very commendable step by the NNPC. We encourage Nigerians to download the audit reports and other data put up by NNPC, study them, and Ask Questions,” says Adejoke Akinbode, a Project Officer with BudgIT’s Extractive Department. While these are important steps regarding transparency, more still has to be done by the Federal Government to reform the NNPC.

“The Federal Government needs to reform the NNPC to reverse the trend of the massive losses recorded by some of the NNPC subsidiaries, annually.

This audit report is a laudable step towards showing Nigerians the true picture of what is going on in NNPC.” added Gabriel Okeowo, BudgIT’s Principal Lead.