The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has appealed to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to help tackle the menace of crude oil theft in the country.

The Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, made the appeal at an interactive session with the EFCC Executive Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, at the NNPC Towers in Abuja on Monday, March 11, 2024.

Speaking about the efforts by the NNPCL to eradicate corruption from its system and stem crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism, Kyari said going by the volume of oil stolen daily and the brazenness with which the perpetrators operate, crude oil theft was the most humongous and virulent economic crime in Nigeria that must attract the attention of the EFCC.

He said: “As we continue to do our best to deepen transparency and stamp out corruption from the system, there is one big challenge that you will need to help us with, Mr. Chairman. That challenge is crude theft. It fits into everything you have said – the people, the asset, the opportunity, and the absence of deterrence.

“We have deactivated 6,409 illegal refineries in the Niger Delta region. Today, we have disconnected up to 4,846 illegal pipes connected to our pipelines; that is out of 5,543 such illegal connection points. That means there are a vast number of such connections that we have not removed.

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“These things don’t just happen from the blues. They happen in communities and locations we all know. As we remove one illegal connection, another one comes up. It is sad, Mr. Chairman.

“This kind of thing does not happen anywhere else in the world. When we say illegal connections, they are not invisible things, they are big pipes that require some level of expertise to be installed.

“I believe, personally, that the very purpose of your commission is to curtail economic crimes, and there is no bigger economic crime of this scale anywhere else than what is happening in this area.”

On corruption within the system, Kyari explained that by law, NNPCL is required to maintain high ethical standards and has put in place structures and measures to curb discretionary actions which fuel corruption, stressing that most processes in the company have been fully automated to discourage arbitrary actions.

He disclosed that many issues of corruption reported in the public were either not true or recycled from the past.

On his part, Olukoyede, expressed satisfaction with NNPCL’s commitment to issues of ethics and code of conduct.

The EFCC boss, however, challenged the management to ensure that the codes of ethics and regulations are complemented with monitoring and enforcement to enhance deterrence.

The Star