Senate Throws Out Report On Fuel Crisis

The Senate, yesterday, rejected the report of the Committee on Downstream Petroleum sector that investigated Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, crisis across the country.

Senators, who spoke after the presentation of the report by the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Kabiru Marafa (APC, Zamfara Central), took a swipe at it, with some senators concluding that the report was not written by the committee, but by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

The lawmakers, who noted that the 16-page report did not meet their expectations, said, however, that it energized the corruption that was on going, and not a representation of Senate’s integrity.

At the end of the tongue-lashing of the interim report, the Senate resolved that the committee should take it back and do a more thorough investigation on the real volume of petrol imported into the country as well as issues that led to the scarcity which is still lingering.

It also directed its Committee on Public Accounts to conduct an open investigation on reports of imposition of new fuel subsidy regime without the approval of the National Assembly.

Meanwhile, the Senate, yesterday, said the NNPC and independent marketers defrauded Nigeria to the tune of N784.700 billions on surplus volume of fuel importation of about 5.9 billion litres in 2017 alone.

It equally directed its committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) to carry out thorough investigation on the alleged fraud .

The Senate threatened to sanction the executive constitutionally on any unappropriated spending made, henceforth, particularly as regards the illegal subsidy regime of N26 per litre being effected on fuel sales in the country.

According to the report, the N784 billion fraud came about through five days surplus importation at 35 million litres per day by NNPC on monthly basis, totalling 60 days surplus importation in addition to marketers 109 days surplus supply.