Group to honour NNPC GMD, Mele Kyari for transparency, reforms

Nathan Tamarapreye, Yenagoa

The Niger Delta Youth Coalition for Progress and Peace, (NDYCPP) is to honour the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari for creating opportunities, transparency, and probity.

The NDYCPP said before Kyari assumed office as the GMD of NNPC there were many unresolved as well as lingering issues that tended to hamper the oil sector from achieving its full potential.

According to the group, with the coming on board of Kyari, he has convinced industry watchers of the new direction of the NNPC by making the financial books open transparently for public probity which has changed the opacity in the system.

The group’s National President, Tiedo Olayinka, made these known in a statement issued in Yenagoa on Sunday.

He said the NDYCPP plans to honour the GMD during its forthcoming Niger Delta Youth Entrepreneur on Oil and Gas Summit in December in Port Harcourt.

According to the group Kyari is seen as a visionary and professional manager with a towering repertoire of the inner workings of the industry, having served in various positions over the years.

The experience, they noted, makes him the right man to head the NNPC, adding that he has effectively deployed his wealth of experience to bear by efficiently repositioning the NNPC.

“The NNPC has transformed from opacity to Transparency, Accountability, Performance and Excellence (TAPE).

“Before his assumption of office as the GMD of the NNPC; there were a lot of unresolved and knotty issues lingering and hampering the Sector from achieving its potential.

“From then lingering Petroleum Industry Bill, which is now the Petroleum Industry Act, the constitution of the board to superintend one of its break-up units.

“The OML 25 impasse at Kula in Akuku-Toru LGA of Rivers State between Belema Oil, the Community and Shell SPDC which has been now resolved amicably and operational activities has resumed in earnest.

“NNPC financial books have never been opened transparently for public scrutiny over the years but the coming on board of Kyari has changed all of that opacity and nebulousness in the system.

“Not quite long when Mele Kyari assumed office, the stifling Covid-19 pandemic hit the world economy which adversely affected the petroleum industry real hard, the price of crude oil sharply in the International market which affected our revenue earnings drastically but with resilience and careful handling of affairs we were able to come out stronger.

“The investment issues surrounding train 7 of NNLG in Bonny, Rivers State, about the concerns of the partners which has also been tactfully resolved and operations are going on smoothly.” The statement read in part.

He maintained that industry watchers and stakeholders in the sector can attest to the fact that Kyari has surpassed all his predecessors for the past 20 years when this democratic dispensation started in 1999 to date.

“Therefore, Niger Delta youth leaders have concluded plans to confer on Mele Kyari an Award of Excellence in Public Probity as the GMD of NNPC in our forthcoming Niger Delta Youth Entrepreneur on Oil and Gas Summit sometime in December this year in Port Harcourt ” the group stated.

The statement commended President Mohammadu Buhari, for appointing an outstanding and astute industry technocrat as the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the NNPC.

The group enjoined the GMD of NNPC to sustain his good works as posterity shall surely hold him in high esteem as his record of service delivery will certainly be a golden reference point in the annals of the Petroleum Industry sub-sector.