Fuel Subsidy Probe: Need For Caution

Pursuant to Section 88 and 89 of the 1999 constitution which empowers the National Assembly to make an inquest into any sector of the economy, to ensure that corruption was exposed and waste of public funds checked, the House of Representatives, through its ad-hoc committee on Petroleum Subsidy Management led by Hon Farouk Lawan had gone ahead, in the pubic interest, to probe the activities in the petroleum industry sector.

The Farouk Lawan committee, after a thorough investigation into the fuel subsidy management, came out with a report that is adjudged by many as a true reflection of the rot in the petroleum industry and what now appears to be the mismanagement of the fuel subsidy.

In opening the pandora’s box of Nigeria’s legendary “corruption industry,” the committee, in its no-holds-barred report, revealed a sleaze of un-imaginable proportion, just in the wake of the exhumation of similar scam in the nation’s pension sector.

The committee established that the actual subsidy paid out by the federal government as at December 31, 2011 was  N2.587 trillion instead of the N245 billion appropriated in the 2011 budget.

According to the committee, the figure is based on payments made by the Central Bank of Nigeria in favour of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), withdrawals by the NNPC from the excess crude account and subsidy to the marketers.

From the report, it is widely reported that N1.07 trillion was misappropriated by some institutions and stakeholders involved in the subsidy payment and collection.

As suspected by many Nigerians, the Farouk Lawan committee took the NNPC to the cleaners for being “unaccountable to anybody or authority.” The committee had reportedly indicted the NNPC, Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), oil marketers and firms as well as others for improper acts and recommended that they be made to refund N1.07 trillion alleged to be illegally diverted.

In fact, the committee had also indicted two accounting firms for professional incompetence by not detecting the scam as consultants to NNPC, while the failure to sanction culprits in the public service in accordance with Civil Service Rules and the Code of Conduct Bureau was flayed.

As expected, the Farouk Committee generated intense debate in the House just as it has elicited public outrage. Threats, intimidations and refutals by parties involved in the matter are as high as public expectations of the outcome on the report perceived to be highly critical.

The Tide applauds the House of Representatives, particularly, the Farouk Lawan Committee for putting integrity, audacity  and courage in the forefront of their action and urge that they should be unwavering in their resolve to sanitise the oil industry by resisting pressures that are likely to rubbish its report and make it go the way of the Ndudi Elumelu committee power probe.

The Tide insists that justice must not only be done, but must be manifestingly seen to have been done in this urgent and all-important national assignment. The public and indeed, the international community is watching to see the outcome of the revelations in the report. What is to be done now is to bring those culpable in this criminal rape of the Nigerian economy to justice and put the nation back on the track of transformation and progress that would assure it a prime of place in the comity of progressive nations.

Already, the Federal Government has fired the accounting firms indicted in the report, citing ongoing efforts at reviewing the subsidy regime. But the action appears to be hasty, even if done in the public interest or as a veiled response to the demand of the Farouk Lawan Committee. The Tide suggests that great caution is required at this level. Both the House and the Federal Government should avoid running into hasty judgement that may jeopardise the gains already made.

It is heart-warming that the President, through his spokesman, Reuben Abati, has assured that the president will at the right time act on the probe reports, and will do it in the best interest of Nigerians. Government must make haste slowly and act decisively not minding whose ox is gored as this would in no small measure prove the Federal Government’s avowed commitment to the fight against corruption.