The Senate Committee on Petroleum (downstream) is set to commence investigation into the petroleum subsidy scheme with a warning that any government officials found to have been involved in petroleum subsidy racketeering would be duly punished.
Committee Chairman, Senator Kabir Marafa stated this while addressing executives of agencies of government who were being questioned over their roles in petroleum subsidy from 2006 till date.
Marafa said, the claims by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that 70 million litres of PMS were being consumed daily by Nigerians might not be true; hence, the move to investigate activities of the sector.
“Distinguished colleagues, heads of agencies, this investigation would touch all agencies of government who are involved in petroleum downstream.”
“NNPC has said that Nigerians consumes 70 million litres of fuel per day, and the issue is, why are we still experiencing fuel scarcity?”
He believed that government was paying for subsidy that did not exist, adding that the Senate was not comfortable with the submission by NNPC GMD, that NNPC was being owed N1.7billion subsidy.
Asked to submit all he knew about subsidy, Deputy Director (downstream) in the Department of Petroleum Resources, Alhaji Usman Ndanusa said, DPR does not have anything to do with subsidy.
“Distinguished Chairman, we have different responsibilities from subsidy payment, so we don’t have anything to do with subsidy at all”, he maintained.
However, the Executive Secretary of Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, Abdulkadir Saidu explained that subsidy was a responsibility of PPPRA. He added that the agency assesses petroleum consumption every quarter before advising government to that effect.
He noted further that all subsidy claims were approved by PPPRA before payments were made by the NNPC.
Marafa further revealed that the committee was working with foreign agencies involved in downstream to established actual litres of imported fuel into the country.
He charged those agencies to make available all documents that would help the committee conclude its investigations.
