THE Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited is, once again, hit by multi-billion naira fraud linked to refinery turnaround maintenance in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna, especially under the administration of its immediate past Group Managing Director, Mr Mele Kyari.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) last week recovered more than N5 billion and $10 million from contractors and government officials indicted in fraud linked to the turnaround maintenance in the three refineries.
An EFCC source said the agency is also chasing an additional N10 billion and $13 million allegedly siphoned through inflated contracts and questionable transactions in the rehabilitation projects under Mr Kyari.
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BusinessDay quoted EFCC insiders who said the commission is “probing the disbursement of $1.55 billion to the Port Harcourt refinery, $740.6 million to the Kaduna refinery, and $656.9 million to the Warri refinery.”
Economy Post had earlier reported that under Mr Kyari, the NNPC spent nearly $3 billion on the rehabilitation of Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries but none is working.
In March 2021, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the sum of $1.5 billion for the rehabilitation of Port Harcourt refinery in Rivers State. In August 2021, FEC also approved the sum of $1.48 billion for the rehabilitation of both Warri and Kaduna refineries. This puts the budget for the three refineries at $2.98 billion – nearly $3 billion of public funds.
Failed promises
Mr Kyari gave various dates of completion for the refineries which did not happen. On September 21, 2019, Mr Kyari said Nigeria’s refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna would become operational and refine crude oil at optimum capacity by 2022. This was even before the contracts for the refineries were awarded.
In November 2020, Mr Kyari told energy correspondents in Abuja that “the vision of revamping the pipelines is in tandem with the Refineries Rehabilitation Project which we have promised to deliver by 2023.”
He added, “I am happy to announce that the funding challenge which had stalled the second phase of the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery has been resolved. The contract for the second phase will soon be awarded and work will commence in Q1 of 2021,” he said.
On March 15, 2024, Mr Kyari also repeated his promise after failing to keep it earlier. The ex-NNPC GMD said the Port Harcourt refinery would begin production by the end of March 2024. Kyari spoke at a meeting with the Senate ad hoc committee investigating the various turnaround maintenance (TAM) projects of Nigerian refineries.
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“In the next two weeks, production will start. We did mechanical completion of Port Harcourt, that was what we said in Dec 2023,” he said on March 15.
“That means we are done with our rehabilitation work, now you are to test if this completion is okay,” he noted. Mr Kyari also claimed that mechanical works had been completed at Warri refinery, noting that the facility was undergoing regulatory compliance procedures.
On November 26, 2024, the NNPC under Mr Kyari said Port Harcourt refinery had commenced production, claiming that truck loading of petroleum products began that day.
Former Chief Corporate Communications Officer, NNPC, Mr Olufemi Soneye, said this in a post on his X handle on November 26 morning. “PortHarcourt Refinery begins production; truck loading starts today, Tuesday,” Mr Soneye had said.
On December 30, 2024, My Kyari claimed during a facility tour that Warri refinery had commenced operations.
However, these promises given by Mr Kyari failed to materialise. The Punch reported on June 25 that former NNPC spokesman, Mr Soneye, had told its correspondent on May 23 that the refinery would be shut down for maintenance. In fact, marketers said the refinery never produced petrol months before its latest shutdown.
IPMAN’s Publicity Secretary, Mr Chinedu Ukadike, had told the Punch that the refinery had not produced any fuel in the past few months, wondering why the NNPC was just announcing a shutdown at that time.
“The refinery has been down for years before it was rehabilitated and reopened last year. Now, they are shutting it down again. That means something is wrong. To the best of my knowledge, the refinery has not been producing anything in the past three months. This shutdown is just to save their face,” Mr Ukadike said.
Kyari’s four bank accounts frozen
The federal high court in Abuja, on Tuesday, August 19, ordered the temporary freezing of four Jaiz Bank accounts linked to Mr Kyari over alleged fraud.
Trial judge, Justice Emeka Nwite, issued the order after an ex-parte motion was filed by the EFCC. The EFCC numbered Mr Kyari’s account details as: Jaiz Bank account number: 0017922724 with account name, Mele Kyari; Jaiz Bank account number, 0018575055 with account name, Guwori Community Development Fund; and Jaiz Bank number, 0018575141, with account name, Guwori Community Development Foundation Flood Relief.
The EFCC told the court that “upon receipt of the petition referred to in Paragraph 4 above, my team carried out several investigation activities which included seeking and obtaining bank records from commercial Banks.”
It noted that the investigation revealed that the sum of N661.4 million, which are suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities, was warehoused in four different accounts.
“That, these funds were traced to the suspect, Mele Kolo Kyari, who is the former Group Managing Director (GMD) of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). That the suspect opened various accounts in Jaiz Bank which has been used to receive suspicious inflows from NNPC and various oil companies that have dealings with NNPC.
“That bank records revealed that these accounts are controlled and managed by Mr Kyari through his family members who are acting as fronts.”
The plea was granted by the court to freeze the accounts temporarily.
Endless, fraudulent turnaround maintenance
Economy Post had reported that NNPC under Mr Kyari spent N16.7 trillion (approximately N17 trillion) on the turnaround maintenance of the nation’s three refineries between 2002 and 2022.
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Earlier in May 2023, the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee on the State of Refineries in the Country had revealed that the Federal Government spent a total sum of N11.35 trillion on the rehabilitation of the three refineries from 2010 to 2023. The committee stated that the total cost of refineries’ rehabilitation within the period was N11.349 trillion, with additional costs in other currencies including $592.976 million, €4.877 million and £3.456 million.
Several companies – local and foreign – have benefitted from the failed turnaround maintenance projects, which have plunged the refineries into bankruptcy.
One of the biggest beneficiaries of the turnaround maintenance is Mr Emeka Offor, whose Chrome Group handled most of the contracts for the turnaround maintenance of the Port Harcourt refinery under late General Sani Abacha.
Premium Times quoted former President Olusegun Obasanjo as saying in 2015 that nothing came out of the turnaround maintenance work done by the businessman.
“I explained that what I met were refineries that were not working, refineries that were given to an amateur for repairs, for maintenance, what they call turn around maintenance to the company of Emeka Offor – Chrome Group,” the newspaper quoted Mr. Obasanjo as saying.
“Where has Emeka Offor maintained refineries before? Where has he? That’s what we met. So, the refineries were not working. What can you recover? A man (Mr. Offor) who was paid upfront. He had people…. after I left he became friends with every government that has come. Now he’s not only into refinery and oil and all that, he’s now also in energy,” it further quoted Mr Obasanjo as saying.
In 2014, Offor also got a contract for a turnaround maintenance work from former President Goodluck Jonathan.
