The Senate on Tuesday said
the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had not accounted
for the N32 removed as subsidy on each litre of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol)
sold from January 2012 to September 2013.
It lamented that officials of the
NNPC failed to honour its invitation to give account of how they managed the
accrued fund.
Members of the Senate ad hoc
committee on the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme raised the
alarm after NNPC and the Central Bank of Nigeria officials failed to honour an
appointment with them on Tuesday.
A member of the committee, Senator
Kabiru Marafa, said the committee had observed that over N800bn ought to have
accrued for the SURE-P projects between January 2012 and September 2013.
According to him, the accrued fund
will be over N800bn based on N32 that is removed from each of the 25
billion litres of fuel sold in 21 months.
He said the figure was contained in a
letter dated October 9, 2013 from the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources
to the committee. The letter, he said, was signed by the ministry’s Director of
Finance and Accounts, Mr. Salmanu Faskari.
Marafa said, “The committee had
earlier written the NNPC to ascertain the quantity of fuel sold from when the
subsidy programme started till date. NNPC gave us the quantity sold from
January 2012 and September 2013, covering 21 months.
“If you add everything
together, it will amount to about 25 billion litres and if you multiply
25 billion litres by N32, you get about N800bn. What SURE-P coordinators told
us when they appeared before us was that they had so far collected about
N300bn since the subsidy removal regime started.
“The SURE-P team led by Mr.
Christopher Kolade said they were receiving N15bn flat rate every month. If you
multiply 21 months by N15bn, it will be about N350bn. What we are even asking
is what happened to the over N500bn difference. That is what we ask the NNPC to
come and tell us.
“We were also disappointed that the
CBN was not here because they are the custodian of the fund. They should come
and account for how they came about the N15bn they were remitting every month
when it was not the same quantity of fuel they were selling every month.
“The figure cannot be a flat rate.
Based on the figure which the ministry supplied, in January this year, the
nation consumed about 1.3 billion litres of petrol but it had dropped to 770,
695, 645 in September 2013.”
Chairman of the Senate ad hoc committee on
SURE-P, Senator Abdul Ningi, threatened to use all legitimate means to
bring the affected officials before the committee
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