Reps summon Ministers, NNPC GMD, others over extra-budgetary fuel subsidy payment

Nigeria’s House of Representatives on Thursday summoned Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Finance and Ibe Kachikwu, Minster of State for Petroleum over alleged extra-budgetary spending paid as fuel subsidy.

The resolution was passed by the joint committee on Finance and Petroleum Resources (Downstream)co-chaired by Babangida Ibrahim (APC-Katsina) and Joseph Akinlaja (PDP-Ondo).

Also expected to appear before the joint committee is Maikanti Baru, Group Managing Director (GMD) of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC); and heads of Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) and Petroleum Equalisation ‎Fund (PEF).

The lawmakers had during as scheduled meeting held at the National Assembly expressed displeasure over the refusal of both ministers and other government functionaries to honour several invitations sent to them.

In his remarks, Ibrahim Babangida, chairman House Committee on Finance disclosed that the documents before the joint committee showed that the landing cost of petroleum products is far above the government approved N145 a litre.

He said the committee was set out to find out who pays for the differential, noting that the failure of the top government officials to appear before the joint panel was an affront to the Legislature.

‎”The mandate given to this joint committee on finance and petroleum (downstream) by the House are to invite the minister of state for petroleum and finance minister; the GMD of NNPC as well as ES of PPPRA, and urge the Executive to make provision for subsidy payment in the 2019 budget.

“Unfortunately, the heads of the relevant MDAs are not here, and they are very central to our mandate. So what do we do now as a committee for us to carry out our assignment?” he said.

On his part, Ossai Nicholas Ossai (PDP-Delta) said the National Assembly has constitutional powers to summon government officials who fail to appear before any panel after an invitation.

“I believe that these individuals should be summoned along with their offices. We can go to issue warrant of arrest if they don’t respect our summon. Any other things to be discussed in the absence of the heads of agencies may not augur well for our investigation,” he said.

While ruling, Ibrahim maintained that,: “the position of the joint committee is to summon the heads of the agencies to appear unfailingly on Thursday next week.”

KEHINDE AKINTOLA, Abuja