- Kyari denies owing a blending plant in Malta
- Challenged Dangote to name NNPC officials who have such plant outside Nigeria
- Promised to sanction NNPC members that own blending plant
The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, has disclosed that the Malta blending plant, as Alhaji Aliko Dangote alleged, can not influence NNPC’s business operations and strategic actions.
The NNPCL stated this Tuesday to counter the allegation made by the Chairman of Dangote Group who in an interview claimed that some workers of the Nigeria-owned oil company have their blending plant in Malta through which they imported inferior petroleum products in the Nigerian market.
The claim by Alhaji Dangote followed a statement credited to Mr. Farouk Ahmed that diesel produced by Dangote refinery and other local refineries in Nigeria are inferior compared to the imported ones, which angered Dangote and vowed to expose all the ‘sharp practices’ of the government agency. Farouk is the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, one of the agencies of the Ministry of Petroleum resources.
Dangote had said while speaking to newsmen in Abuja “Some NNPC people have opened a blending plant somewhere off Malta where they bring in poor quality products with fake certificates. I don’t fear anybody and I will say more as we progress and will fight them head on.”
But in a reaction, the NNPCL boss clears himself saying, he did not “own or operate any business directly or by proxy anywhere in the world.”
Kyari, who said he only has a local mini Agric venture in Nigeria, claimed that he was not aware of “any employee of the NNPC, that owns or operates a blending plant in Malta or anywhere else in the world.”
While disclosing on his X handle that it is punishable for any NNPCL staff to own such a plant however said “A blending plant in Malta or any part of the world has no influence over NNPC’s business operations and strategic actions.”
He challenged the founder of Dangote Group to name any NNPC staff who owns a lending plant Malta, an island in Southern Europe, promising that NNPC’s “compliance sanction grid shall apply to any NNPC employee who is established to be involved in doing so if availed.”
Since Dangote refinery came on board, there have been power tussles between major agencies of NNPC and Dangote.
The last straw that broke the camel’s back was a claim by NMDPRA boss that the Dangote refinery, which former President Muhammadu Buhari officially commissioned on May 22, 2023, did not have an operating licence and that its products are substandard.
The meeting called by the Minister for State, Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, on Monday to resolve the differences between Africa’s biggest investors and the ministry’s agencies seems to have no effect as Dangote vowed to fight back.