The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari, has called on the Department of State Services (DSS) to help squelch the escalating cases of petroleum products smuggling and other allied vices which had remained a clog in the drive to achieve efficiency in the operations of the Oil and Gas Industry.
Leading the top level NNPC management team to the service Headquarters in Abuja on a courtesy visit on Thursday, Kyari, who was accorded a warm welcome by the Director General of the DSS, Yusuf Magaji Bichi, lamented the negative impacts of the activities of smugglers and related ills on the nation’s economy.
He said the intolerable implication of the reign of smuggling syndicates was that Nigeria is the unintended supplier of petroleum products to the entire west coast of Africa and beyond.
The NNPC GMD listed other areas for immediate intervention to include: oil pipeline vandalism which has led to significant losses in revenue, protection of NNPC workforce and equipment in course of operation in the frontier exploration fields.
Kyari stated that the assistance being sought from DSS would go a long way to guaranteeing a veritable national energy security in line with the aspiration of the Service to the government and people of Nigeria.
He noted that the attainment of the aforementioned goals would not only be helpful to NNPC’s operations but would ultimately impact on the generality of the populace since NNPC is the biggest enabler of the Nigeria economy.
The NNPC GMD acknowledged the long history of inter-agency collaboration between the corporation and the DSS, noting that the long dalliance between both Federal Government owned agencies can only be enhanced to ensure that the corporation is placed at vantage position to grow production and crude reserve in such a way as to ensure funding for the country.
Welcoming the top level NNPC team to the DSS HQ, Bichi, while also echoing the long history of collaboration between both establishments, assured the NNPC team of round-the-clock support.
He said the agency, in line with its statutory responsibility, would provide maximum collaboration to help NNPC succeed.