The Nigeria Governors’ Forum will be hosting its 25th teleconference meeting and its 2nd this year. According to Asishana Okauru, the Director General of NGF, the meeting, is a single topic agenda where the NNPC would make a presentation on what states should know about NNPC Audited reports.
Okauru advised governors to join on Wednesday, Feb 10th by 2pm, adding that on On the team to the meeting is DFID as well.
It is recalled that NNPC released its 2019 Audited Financial Statement with a 99.7% reduction in its loss profile from ₦803bn in 2018 to ₦1.7bn in 2019.
Dr. Kennie Obateru, the Corporation’s spokesman, quoted Mr. Umar Ajiya, the NNPC Chief Financial Officer (CFO), as saying that the 2019 Audited Financial Statement, which was concluded five months after the release of the 2018 Audited Financial Statement, will be published on the Corporation’s website for all to see in keeping with Management’s commitment to transparency and accountability and in consonance with the principles of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) of which it is a partner.
Giving further insight into the 2019 AFS, the CFO disclosed that general administrative expenses also witnessed a 22% dip from ₦894bn in 2018 to ₦696bn in 2019.
According to Ajiya, majority of the subsidiaries posted improved performance namely, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited (NPDC) which recorded ₦479Billion profit in 2019 compared to ₦179Billion in 2018 representing 167% increase; the Integrated Data Services Limited (IDSL) recorded ₦23Billion profit in 2019 compared to ₦154Million in 2018 representing 14966% increase; the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC) recorded ₦14.2Billion profit in 2019 compared to ₦9.3Billion in 2018 representing 52% increase; while the Refineries have maintained the same level of losses as in 2018 but which will reduce significantly in 2020 due to cost optimization drive.
The CFO explained that the improved performance in the 2019 financial year was driven mainly by cost optimization, contracts renegotiation and operational efficiency.
He said “the 2019 AFS goes further to demonstrate our unwavering commitment to the principle of Transparency, Accountability and Performance Excellence (TAPE) while the outlook for 2020 looks promising in view of the Management’s strong drive to prune down running cost and grow revenues.”
By Chidi Ugwu,
Independent Newspaper