NNPC bridging energy gap, says Mele Kyari

The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.), Mr Mele Kyari, has assured that the organisation continues to lay the foundation for sustainable wealth creation by bridging the energy deficit in the country. 

He stated this during a presentation at a Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) Public Wealth Management Conference in Abuja. Mr Kyari said no public wealth-creation endeavour could achieve any meaningful success without energy security, adding that all other wealth-creating activities, such as agriculture, rely heavily on one form of energy or the other to thrive.

Mr Kyari said: “If you don’t have energy, you don’t have agriculture. You can do all the agriculture, but you can’t take it to the market, you may not be able to preserve it, you can’t even export it. So, all those indices are connected to the ability to create energy.”

He disclosed that Nigeria has a huge energy deficit, with about 70% of the population lacking access to clean cooking fuel and over 50% lacking access to electricity. The NNPC boss identified a lack of investment in the energy sector due to uncertainty in the business environment and multiple taxation as some of the impediments to the achievement of energy security in Nigeria. He stressed that in the last ten years, less than 3% of the total investment flow into Africa came into Nigeria.

Mr Kyari noted that despite the challenges, NNPC Limited is still the highest tax-paying corporate entity in Nigeria, stressing that the company’s growth trajectory from a loss position of N803bn in 2018 to N2.5tr in 2022 was a testimony to the abundant potential of the company to lead the process of wealth creation in the country.