Staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, received N357.098 billion as salaries, wages and other benefits in 2019, according to the corporation’s recently released audited financial statement. The NNPC Group had disclosed that its staff strength, as at April 20, 2020, stood at 6,621, both at its headquarters and across all its subsidiaries, division and offices nationwide. The NNPC has 13 divisions and Strategic Business Units, SBU, nationwide.
Though the NNPC recruited 1,050 new employees, February 2020, a number of senior management staff of the NNPC were also disengaged earlier in the year. According to the NNPC, in its 2019 audited financial statement, the emoluments of the staff in 2019 was an increase of N14.74 billion or an appreciation of 4.3 per cent from N342.36 billion paid to the staff in 2018. The N357.098 billion, if divided among the 6,621 staff of the NNPC, translates to an average salary of N53.93 million per employee in 2019.
Putting it in context, the N357.098 billion salary of NNPC staff is more than the 2020 budgets of three south-east states – Enugu, Anambra and Imo states — combined, which is N350.3 billion. Specifically, the 2020 budget of Enugu, Anambra and Imo states is N146.4 billion, N114.9 billion and N89 billion respectively. In addition, the salary of NNPC’s staff is higher than Delta State’s 2020 budget of N282 billion; Kano, Kaduna, Borno and Sokoto’s budgets of N206.27 billion, N259.25 billion, N108.8 billion and N153 billion respectively; while the 2020 budget of Edo, Rivers and Abia states were N128.8 billion, N300.37 billion and N102.6 billion respectively.
The salary is also higher than the N127.36 billion, N131.74 billion and N152.77 billion earmarked for capital expenditure in the proposed 2021 budget for the Federal Ministry of Education, Federal Ministry of Health and Federal Ministry of Water Resources, respectively.
It is also higher than the N256.89 billion, N198.28 billion, N89.97 billion N64.84 billion and N10.19 billion budgeted for capital expenditure in the proposed 2021 budget for the ministries of Transport, Power, Aviation, Science and Technology, and Mines and Steel Development, respectively.
Furthermore, in the 2019 financials, the NNPC said it paid N91.336 billion to the government as income tax in 2019; and N74.177 billion as interest on loans in the same year.
However, staff of the NNPC alone — not including employees of other subsidiaries — received N103.7 billion as salaries, wages and other benefits in 2019, an increase of 13.26 per cent compared with N91.56 billion recorded in 2018. The NNPC Group had also stated that 27.2 per cent of its total workforce, comprising 1,801 staff is currently employed in the Corporate Headquarters.
To this end, from the N103.7 billion, an average staff of the NNPC’s corporate headquarters received N57.58 million as salary, wages and other benefits in 2019. NNPC’s workforce In addition, the NNPC had stated that 13 per cent of the group’s total workforce were employed in the Nigerian Pipelines and Storage Company (NPSC); while 758 individuals are currently employed in the moribund Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company, KRPC, representing 11.4 per cent of the NNPC Group’s total workforce.
Culled from Sunday Vanguard