Fakoyejo OlalekanThe House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, criticised Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, and three others for failing to appear before the lawmakers.
Nigeria’s green chamber had summoned Kyari, Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva and Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele for a public hearing to probe fuel consumption figures and subsidy payments.
Recall that the lawmaker, Sergius Ose-Ogun, raised concern over the fuel subsidy payment last week, accusing the NNPC of inflating the cost to exploit Nigeria. He said the government-owned firm are using it to divert funds.
During the plenary last week Wednesday, Ose-Ogun revealed that over $10 billion has been diverted through fuel subsidy, and as of last year, over $7 billion has been stolen, he told his colleagues.
According to him, instead of NNPC to quote 40 million to 45 million litres per day as consumption rate for Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS), Ose-Ogun said 65 million to 100 million was reported.
“Disturbed that there exists evidence that subsidy amounts are being duplicated, thus subsidy is charged against petroleum products sales in the books of NNPC as well as against crude oil revenue in the books of NAPIMS to the tune of over N2 trillion” Ose-Ogun had said.
The lawmaker asked that the the subsidy payments between 2017 to 2021 be probed, requesting for the presence of the heads of several government agencies to defend the figures.
During the public hearing on Tuesday, Gbajabiamila, who was represented by the Deputy Majority Leader of the House, Peter Akpatason, said their absence could be viewed as a way of frustrating the investigation.
Other agencies that were not present are Managing Director of the Pipelines Products Marketing Company (PPMC), Mallam Isiyaku Abdullahi, and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources’ Permanent Secretary.
Gbajabiamila expressed his disappointment following their failure to show up, and has again summoned the various heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies to appear before the lawmakers.
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