Sam Ikeotuonye
22 August 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos — The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, has called for a restructuring of the proposed Nigerian Petroleum Asset Management Company, NPAMC, in the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill, PIGB.
According to him, the NPAMC should be structured in form of an agency rather than a company as proposed in the PIGB.
This is the kernel of Dr. Baru’s presentation at the 2018 conference of the Association of Energy Correspondents of Nigeria in Lagos.
He said that NPAMC should be structured as an agency in consideration of its limited role in the administration of production sharing contract assets as similar institutions across the world were structured as agencies, one example being Petoro in Norway.
Speaking on the PIGB, the NNPC boss, who was represented at the conference by Mr. Roland Ewubare, the Group General Manager, Nigerian Petroleum Investment Management Services, NAPIMS, said it focused on key governing institutions in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry and also aimed at separating the regulatory, policy and commercial roles of public sector agencies.
Baru said it also allocated respective roles to agency properly positioned to perform them and that it was important to adequately clarify the funding pattern for the NPAMC and the Liability Management Company, NPLMC.
The NNPC boss said the national oil company had historically experienced frequent board and management leadership changes which had impacted on its performance.
He noted that though the PIGB defined tenure for its non-executive directors, there were currently no provisions that would help to ensure stable tenure for the executive directors and insulate them from the changing dynamics of politics as far as possible.
