TheCable

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has alerted members of the public of fraudsters purportedly assigning crude oil contracts on paper.

In a statement signed by Ndu Ughamadu, its spokesperson, the corporation said the suspects specialise in circulating letters of crude oil allocation with the intent of defrauding unsuspecting would-be buyers or members of the public.At the presentation of commendation letters of commendation to 12 staff of the crude oil marketing division,  Maikanti Baru, NNPC group managing director, said the activities of these fraudsters were an unnecessary distraction to staff.

At the presentation of commendation letters of commendation to 12 staff of the crude oil marketing division,  Maikanti Baru, NNPC group managing director, said the activities of these fraudsters were an unnecessary distraction to staff.Speaking

Speaking of their activities, Mele Kyari, group general manager in charge of the crude marketing division, said the scammers function by sending fake crude oil allocation letters using names of senior NNPC officials as decoy and requesting the gullible individuals to pay certain cash deposits as commission on volume of crude received.

“The gullible individuals end up paying huge sums of dollars into these accounts as commission but the reality is that nobody allocates crude oil on a piece of paper the way the scammers canvass in their dubious letters,” he said.

“Everything about crude sale is electronic and real time. If you have your cargo, the whole world knows.

“To tackle the challenge, the COMD has made available the email contacts of its top officials thus allowing members of the public access to verify such emails.

“In a similar vein, the division has embarked on the automation of the direct-sale-direct-purchase (DSDP) crude oil for product exchange scheme to ensure transparency of the process.”

Kari said the idea is to guarantee an end-to-end access to the DSDP programme online for stakeholders to monitor the process from the point of crude oil allocation to conversion, return of products to the country and distribution by the Nigerian Products Marketing Company (NPMC) to the ultimate transfer of money into the federation account.