Kaduna — The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has promised to deal with saboteurs of the oil industry, including pipeline vandalism, which is partly responsible for the current fuel crisis in the country, saying all betrayers in the system will be brought to book.

Speaking in Kaduna during a tour of the Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) facilities at the weekend, the new Chief Operating Officer (COO) Upstream of the (NNPC), Bello Rabiu Babura, said the corporation was working with security agencies to deal with saboteurs and everything was being done to maximize the regulatory oversight of all its agencies.

“We have decided to put effective measures in place to address the issue of vandalism which has become a major problem in the country and which is also responsible for the prevailing fuel crisis. We will also make sure that all the laxity and lack of proper planning and regulatory oversight among our agencies is checked. Every agency will now be properly monitored so that people should begin to do what is required of them. A lot of work and overhauling is actually going on in the entire system in order to maximize the regulatory oversight of all our agencies. From a very short while from now, there will be a serious improvement. Clearly, we must ensure that NNPC and all its subsidiaries and agencies work,” he said.

He urged stakeholders and all Nigerians to join hands with the corporation to achieve its mandate of providing petroleum products to Nigerians.

He denied speculations that the federal government was planning to increase the price of petrol.