If you think getting a cheque every year for doing virtually nothing is daydreaming, you haven’t met the Nigeria’s Port Harcourt refinery company.
For the last two years, the management of Port Harcourt Refinery spent N1.54 billion canteen and guest house, Staff loan, compassionate loan and Car loans among others despite producing no refined product even as the refineries drain cash and incur huge losses.
Despite producing nothing in the last two years, this did not stop it from spending over N1.547 billion on Canteen and guest house, Staff loan, compassionate loan and Car loans.
Details of the published report showed between 2021 and 2020, PHRC spent the sum of N176.237 million on Canteen and Guest House.
Another sum of N267.126 million was spent on staff advances between 2020 and 2021. There is no record to show that the advances were paid by the staff, as the money was recorded in the Trade receivables section of the financial report.
Infact, it was noted that the part of the composition of the advances is a ‘staff touring advance”, the staff touring advance stood at N83 million between 2020 and 2021.
The company also doled out other monies such as Car loans worth N1.083 billion in the two years (N488 million in 2021 and N594 million in 2020) while a sum of N20.6 million was spent on compassionate loans.
Nigeria has been having challenges with its petroleum importation spending trillions of naira on petroleum subsidies as a result of non-functionality of its refineries, however, despite the fact that these refineries are not working, the country has continued to spend alot on paying staff for ‘doing nothing’.
Already, there are concerns on the management of the NNPC Ltd, with many persons calling for a review of the financial management of the organisation, especially in face of Nigeria’s fiscal woes.