Chineme Okafor in Abuja
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has redeployed 12 management staff of its flagship upstream subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC).
A statement from NNPC’s Group General Manager, Public Affairs, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, explained that the redeployment would help NPDC to meet its production and reserve targets. It would also remove deadwoods from the organisation’s workforce.
The statement quoted the Chief Operating Officer, Upstream of NNPC, Mr. Rowland Ewubare, to have said that the reorganisation became imperative following the urgent need to grow the NPDC into a big time exploration and production (E&P) player in Nigeria.
Ewubare stated that the NPDC need a team of professionals that were fit-for-purpose and could deliver on project timelines and budgets to measure up to its peers. He added that the shake-up in the NPDC was a routine exercise that was still ongoing, stressing that staff that were not suitable for the posts they were currently occupying would be redeployed for national interest.
According to him, with a presidential mandate, it was appropriate to have a team of professionals who understood the urgency of the exercise.
“The redeployment that just took place in NPDC is a signal to all members of staff that it is no longer business as usual.
“We are determined, as a management, to meet the four cardinal points of Transparency, Accountability with Performance Excellence (TAPE). Therefore, the redeployment has nothing to do with ethnicity, religion, or any sectional interest. The current NNPC management reflects all the six geo-political zones,” said Ewubare.
He maintained that NPDC as the E&P arm of the NNPC was strategic to the achievement of the target to grow the nation’s reserves and production to 40 billion barrels and three million barrels per day (mbpd) by 2023.
He explained that a recent staff evaluation that showed incompetence and compromise on the part of some staff necessitated the shake-up.
“I must put on record that the changes would continue until we get the right optimal managerial talents for the management of those critical assets,” he noted.
