Nigeria’s House of Representatives, Wednesday agreed to summon
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, to explain the
renewed payment of oil subsidy to marketers without securing the
approval of the National Assembly.
Group Managing Director, GMD, Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation, NNPC, Maikanti Baru, and Executive Secretary, Petroleum
Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, Abdulkadir Saidu Umar, will
also be invited to appear.
The officials are to appear before the House Committees on Finance and Petroleum Downstream at a date to be announced soon.
They would also be expected to account for the monies expended on the
subsidy payment since January 2017 in the current Petroleum Pricing
Regime.
The House resolution followed the consideration and adoption of a
motion, entitled, “Urgent Need to Investigate Fuel Subsidy Payment by
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation,” moved by Sunday Karimi (Kogi
State).
Karimi, in his motion, argued that the Federal Government and the
NNPC by-passed the constitution and the National Assembly and took a
unilateral decision in the payment.
He said: “The House notes that December 2017, the Vice President of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, and Minister
of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachiku, have admitted that
the current landing cost of petrol is N171 per litre despite the fact
that the Federal Government has pegged official rate at N145 per liter.
“At the moment, it is the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
that’s paying for cost or deferential of N26 per litre despite the fact
that the federal executive has posited that it has removed petroleum
subsidy in the 2017 Appropriation Act.”