Subsidy Fund: Senate Backs Abe’s Probe Committee

The Senate has expressed  confidence in the Magnus Abe led ad hoc committee probing the management of the fuel subsidy fund.

Speaking to newsmen in Abuja, the Chairman, Senate committee on Information and Media, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe said the Senate constituted the committee with a view to finding out all it needed to know about the operations of the fund . He said that the senate would give the committee all the time it needed to make its investigations.

Senator Abaribe pointed out that the Senate started the probe following the motion sponsored by Senator Olusola Saraki alerting the senate of the sporadic rise in the amount spent by the Federal Government between the first and last quarters of 2011.

The probe , he said  commenced long before the  fuel subsidy nationwide protests after which the House of Representatives constituted its own committee.

According to the Senate’s  spokesman , the representatives  Probe is to serve the House’s purpose while the Senate committee feeds the senate with answers to her questions.

Stressing that the work of the Representatives  committee had in no way overtaken the Abe’s committee work, Senator Abaribe said for all he knows, the adhoc committee was working asidously towards achieving its mandate

He told the newsmen that as   at last Tuesday the committee  was on a fact finding tour of the refineries.

Meanwhile, the Senate ‘ spokesman has absolved the Nigerian judiciary of blame or insinuations of weakness over the recent outcme of former Governor Ibori’s financial crimes case for which he pleaded guilty.

The former Governor of Delta State, James Ibori  fought a long drawn battle with EFCC but couldn’t escape the hook of the United Kingdom’s legal sword . The U K govt said it spent over S14 million on Ibori’s prosecution.

Nneka Amaechi – Nnadi Abuja