The Senate will today question the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu; and the Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Maikanti Baru, over the current crisis in the supply chain of Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol. Also to appear before the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream ) are regulatory bodies, marketers and other stakeholders in the petroleum sector.
The investigative hearing, which will hold in Room 231 at the Senate wing of the National Assembly Complex, is expected to be aired live by the Nigerian Television Authority. President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, had last Thursday directed the committee to cut short its recess and immediately convene a meeting with stakeholders in the petroleum sector over the current scarcity of petrol.
The Chairman of the committee, Senator Kabiru Marafa, had on Friday raised questions on the alleged payment of N 26 per litre to subsidise the pump price of petrol, which the NNPC put its landing cost at N 171 but sells at N 145. He had asked how the Federal Government, through the NNPC, was maintaining a pump price of N145 per litre when the landing cost of the commodity was now N171.
Marafa and Chairman of the Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, who jointly addressed journalists on the matter in Abuja on Friday, stated that the Senate was set to move against anybody or organisation found to have caused the crisis. According to Mafara, those to be grilled include the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association, Major Marketers Association of Nigeria, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, and the Department of Petroleum Resources.
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