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Separate DPR from NNPC – BPE advises FG

By on July 21, 2016

The oil and gas industry is not efficient and effective because the industry regulator, the Department of Petroleum Resources, functions as an arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Bureau of Public Enterprises has said.

The Acting Director-General, BPE, Dr. Vincent Akpotaire, said this in a paper entitled: ‘The Petroleum industry reform in Nigeria: Reinventing the wheel by innovation’, which he presented at the national stakeholders’ workshop on the petroleum industry reform, according to a statement made available to our correspondent by the Head of Public Communications at the privatisation agency, Mr. Alex Okoh, in Abuja on Tuesday.

Akpotaire canvassed the separation of the roles of the regulator from the operator and policy formulation in the NNPC as presently obtainable in the corporation.

He said, “The NNPC currently acts as the policymaker, the regulator as well as an operator of the policies, which go against international best practices. The Department of Petroleum Resources, which ought to be a regulator, is an arm of the NNPC in the present arrangement.

“The challenges we are facing today were envisaged by the BPE over 10 years ago hence, the articulation of the petroleum sector reform and the first-ever drafted Petroleum Industry Bill. After over a decade, we are still talking about the problems rather than the solutions.”

 

[Punch]