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.
______________________________________
Share your thoughts....thanks!
No comments:
Post a Comment