President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurates, the boards of, NNPC , NNRA and NCDMB

President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday inaugurated the boards of three government agencies.
They included the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA) and Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board (NCDMB). President Buhari noted that the new boards were coming at a time the global petroleum industry was witnessing a downturn in purchase, which resulted in dwindling production by most producer nations.

He said that the importance of the boards cannot be overemphasised as oil and gas are the country’s foreign exchange earners.  He said: “Your job should be to ensure propriety in the management of these most important national institutions. You should advise the inister and the corporation management on the most effective way for Nigeria to get more money from our assets. “Nigeria has been hit by the misfortunes of oil industry but several countries have been hit much harder.

“The composition of the board will be chaired by the Minister of State Petroleum and other well selected persons who have both the experience and knowledge to drive the NNPC into harnessing its potentials and fulfill its expectations to the nation even at this challenging time in the oil and gas industry,” he added. He said that his expectations from the members of the boards is for them to ensure that the NNPC charts a way to face the current economic challenges.

Charting a new course, he said, will involve a careful look at the ongoing reforms designed to steer the corporation to achieve better performance and efficiency.

He also charged the boards to explore more innovative ways to resolve the joint venture funding constraints and other investment issues. Buhari noted that there had been an improvement in transparency through publishing of monthly operational and financial report of the corporation since his administration came on board. “This added to the major restructuring of the corporation and the liberalization of the downstream sector, are pointers to the determination and focus of the new NNPC under this administration.

“Finally, I must mention that the task before you is enormous, but I am confident that with your wealth of experience and knowledge of members of this boards, the desired growth, this government aspirations and indeed the aspirations of Nigerians will be achieved within a reasonable time frame,” he stated. Kachikwu, who is the chairman of the three boards, thanked the President for giving the boards members the opportunity to serve. He said: “We have heard your kind words of wisdom and the steer you have given us in terms of ensuring transparency, focus and thinking outside the box in a bid to finding solutions to many of the problems that plague many of these parastatals.

“We assure you that the people you have appointed are competent, experienced and nationalistic and will do the very best to reduce the burden on your shoulders in terms of the management and steer of these institutions. “For NNPC, a lot, like you mentioned, has already been achieved but a lot still needs to be achieved and we will be working with the management through the board to try and get them to where they should be,” he saidFor the NCDMB, he said that the challenge to grow local content is more apparent now when Nigerians are out of work and because of the need for local contracting companies to replace foreign contracting companies. “There is indeed an urgency of yesterday to ensure that the new NCDMB will move Nigeria forward to make sure Nigeria gets the benefits,” he said. He said the NNRA would assist the country towards seeking alternative power sources to power villages and cities across the country.

“Mr. President, be reassured we will continue to work night and day to fulfill the mandate you have given to the Nigerian people and the steer and transparency that you have continued to exhibit as you rule this country,” he said. Speaking with State House correspondents at the end of the inauguration, Kachikwu said: “Some of the expectations that we set for ourselves are to get various boards of the parastatals of the ministry all inaugurated before the end of the year. “There are six of them. Three have been inaugurated today. The other two, which are PPPRA and PTI, would be inaugurated by myself in the next couple of days.

“With that, we have completed the whole process of inaugurating all the boards.” He said that the appointments were not done to compensate anybody. The Executive Secretary of NCDMB, Engineer Simbi Wabote said that a new challenge had been given to the board to take the Nigerian content to the next level and enable Nigerians to participate actively in oil and gas sector.

He said: “To transfer the needed know-how to ensure that as Nigerians we are the ones responsible in moving the oil and gas sector to the next level. A lot has been achieved in the Nigerian content, for now we have to notch it a step higher than it is today. “There will be a lot of transparency as charged by the Presidency, and we will come up with a clear Nigerian content blueprint and everybody will be aware of where we want to be in the next five years.