You can’t unbundle NNPC – Reps tell petroleum minister Kachikwu

The House of Representatives has condemned the planned unbundling of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

The House, at plenary, yesterday, premised its condemnation on the unconstitutionality of the unbundling process as proposed by the Minister of State for Petroleum and Group Managing Director of the corporation, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu.

The House advised that instead of embarking on an unconstitutional journey, President Muhammadu Buhari should send an executive bill to the National Assembly as soon as possible if he had the intentions to unbundle NNPC or carry out fundamental restructuring or reforms in the oil and gas sector and not for the minister to usurp its functions.

The House presided over by Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, mandated the committees on petroleum upstream, petroleum downstream, gas and local content and legislative compliance to ensure that the minister of state for petroleum and GMD was prevented from usurping the functions of the National Assembly and desecrating the Constitution of Nigeria by not allowing him legislate for the National Assembly in the unbundling of NNPC. The resolutions of the House followed a motion sponsored by Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe,( Ogoja/Yala Federal Constituency of Cross River State, PDP), titled, “Urgent need to investigate acts of procedural breach by the GMD of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.” Jarigbe, in the motion, noted that the minister had on Thursday, March 3, 2016, quoted as saying that for the national oil company, a lot of work was ongoing adding, “I am sure some of you have seen the effects, but within the next one week, we are going to be announcing some real major overhaul of the system, one that hasn’t been done in over 20 years.” The lawmaker also stated that the minister also added that,

“The effect of that will be to quite frankly unbundle the huge company into four to five main operational zones, the upstream, downstream, midstream, refining and of course, every other company that is trending to the venture group.”

Continuing, Jarigbe, who is the deputy chairman, House committee on tertiary education and services, said Kachikwu further stated that, “But what is more important is that at the same time, we are also unbundling the subsets of these companies to close to about 30 independent companies with their own managing directors. “And so, titles like the group executive directors, which you have been used to in the last 30 years, will disappear and in place of those you are going to have chief executive officers.

” He noted that the NNPC was established through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, CAP N123, laws of the Federation, 2004 and that as a creature of legislature, the NNPC Act or any part thereof can only be altered, changed or otherwise amended only by an Act of the National Assembly. Jarigbe also told the House that the legislative powers of Nigeria was vested in the National Assembly with power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the federation or any part thereof with respect to matters included in the executive legislative list. He said the petroleum and natural gas was included as item 39 on the Exclusive List and that it was only by an act of the National Assembly that the NNPC can be unbundled and not by the fiat or administrative pronouncement of the minister or even the president. He further expressed worry that the minister’s pronouncement pre-emptied the provisions of the proposed Petroleum Industry Bill, which had not been introduced in the 8th assembly.

– Newswatch