The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has published its audited financial statements for 2018 financial year.
The audited financial statements for the state-owned oil company and its 20 subsidiaries and business divisions, were signed by the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Malam Mele Kyari and the chief executives of the various subsidiaries.
In the corporation’s first-ever audited financial statements, three of its refineries, namely Warri, Kaduna and Port-Harcourt, recorded a combined loss of N154 billion in the corporation’s audited financial statements for 2018. Kaduna refinery also recorded zero revenue for the group.
NNPC said it made the statements public in a bid to improve transparency around its operations.
Further analysis of the subsidiaries’ audited accounts indicated that the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), the group’s most profitable subsidiary, reported revenue of N5.04 trillion in 2018 and profit of N1.01 trillion as against the N1.65 trillion it recorded in 2017.
The report shows total assets managed by NAPIMS stood at N18.6 trillion, with the oil and gas components valued at N14.2 trillion.
Its oil production subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), reported a post-tax profit of N179 billion in 2018.
However, the corporation did not publish consolidated audited accounts for the group.
Commenting on the financial statements, the executive secretary of Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Waziri Adio said the corporation’s action showed the transparency of its operations.
Expressing his views on the report via his Twitter handle@ Waziriadio, the NEITI boss stated: “Having such disclosures is good for transparency and accountability. I urge them to make this a regular practice and in open data format”, he added.
Similarly, BudgIT, a civic organisation committed to application of technology to intersect citizen engagement with institutional improvement to facilitate societal change, has commended the corporation for publishing the audited accounts of its subsidiaries and business divisions for the first time,
In her remarks on the public accounts disclosure by the corporation, a Project Officer with BudgIT’s Extractive Department, Adejoke Akinbode, noted that “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.”
Commenting, BudgIT’s Principal Lead, Gabriel Okeowo, said: “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,” he added.
The corporation has been criticised for years of conducting the country’s oil business in secret by publishing only unaudited financial reports.
