20:44 26/06/2015
Abuja - Nigeria's new President Muhammadu Buhari dissolved the
board of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)
on Friday as a first step to cleaning up the oil industry in Africa's
biggest economy.
Inaugurated on May 29, Buhari came into power on
an anti-corruption platform and a pledge to make the oil sector more
transparent. Oil represents 80 percent of the government's revenues but
the slide in crude prices since last year has left it struggling to pay
its bills.
"The
president has said he will clean up the oil sector. That is the
beginning of the clean up," Buhari's spokesman, Femi Adesina, said.
The
government may be losing money through opaque contracts in which crude
oil worth billions of dollars is given to traders in exchange for
refined imports, mainly gasoline, international and domestic watchdogs
have said.
The lower house of parliament decided on Wednesday to
set up a committee to investigate whether the government had been
short-changed by the state oil company scheme to swap crude for refined
products.
"You can't possibly have the same board in place while
the place is being investigated and with the intention to change the way
things are being done there," said Adesina.
Nigeria's
anti-corruption agency has investigated various oil scandals in the
past, namely a fuel subsidy fraud costing the government $6.8 billion
between 2009-2011. But due to a lack of political will, only a handful
were prosecuted.
"It's the country's cash cow. It has a bright
future. It's just that transparency and accountability have to be
introduced into how it operates and this is the beginning of that
process," Adesina said. (Additional reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram;
Editing by David Clarke)
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