Monrovia – The Senate has mandated its committee on Lands, Mines, Energy and Natural Resources to investigate a claim made by Rivercess Senator, Dallas Gueh, that the current payroll of the National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL) is bloated.
Report by Henry Karmo – [email protected]
Senator Gueh, in a communication to plenary of the Senate said NOCAL, with an employee list of 37, has an annual budget totaling US$1 million despite the financial difficulties the company is said to be undergoing after its financial meltdown.
“There are also reports that the interim management team continues to make very expensive very frequent and often very unnecessary foreign travels, sometimes to visit families in the United States in the name of official business.”
Sen. Gueh said NOCAL needs to give an update of its full operational activities for the past eighteen months especially in terms of austerity measures and other reforms instituted to revive the institution.
He expressed fear that if the interim management team is not monitored and checked regularly, Liberia’s oil program may sink further into the abyss and may be very difficult to resurrect.
“I would therefore request that the Senate committees on lands, Mines and Energy and Public Corporations conduct an investigation into operations, programs, activities and finances of NOCAL since the incumbency of the interim management team,” he stated.
The committee has been given one week to work and report its recommendations and findings on the claims made by the River Cess lawmaker.
NOCAL is reportedly cash-strapped and is no longer leading the promising Liberian oil and gas sector as it did in 2012.
With no sales of seismic data and the prices of oil on the world market still around US$50 per barrel, the Liberian oil and gas industry is left mere aspirations and fading dreams.
NOCAL last contribution to Liberia’s budget was a meager US$3.3 million in the 2014/2015 fiscal year.
That is far less than the US$82.07 million generated by the sector in 2012/13, according to the Liberia Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in 2015 instituted a number of measures aimed at reviving the financially troubled company.
She set up a new interim management team, retired the board of directors of the company and mandated the reduction of its staff from 160 to 50.
NOCAL did not make any contribution to the 2015/2016 National Budget.