Probe NNPC Subsidy Fraud Now – ADP

The Action Democratic Party (ADP) has mandated the National Assembly to wade into the subsidy controversy and probe it.
In a statement issued in Lagos last Saturday by its Lagos spokesman, Prince Adelaja Adeoye, the ADP said that the discrepancies in the subsidy claim have further created tensions, controversies and doubts in the minds of Nigerians.
While he explained in details some of the issues that have emerged from the process, Adeoye called on the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki to urgently set up a committee to look into the subsidy controversy.
According to ADP, “The current fuel scarcity that has left Nigerians in a sorry state, in this festive season, has revealed monumental fraud in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), through its involvement in secret payment of subsidy.
“This is of huge significance because, the Buhari’s government had told Nigerians that subsidy was removed in early 2016,” the party said.
The party further said that in the wake of the present fuel scarcity, the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress government had blamed the problem on major oil marketers, whom it alleged were asking for an increase in the pump price of fuel.
However, the oil marketers later countered the allegation, maintaining that their problem with the government, was far from the alleged demand for pump price increase; and went on to reveal that they were being owed huge sum by the Federal Government in subsidy payment.
The revelation, immediately prompted an outcry from Nigerians who demanded to know what subsidy the marketers were talking about, taking into account that the Buhari government had told the nation, in early 2016, that fuel subsidy has been removed, a development, which led to the increase in pump price from N87 to N145.
The party said that in its explanation in May, 2016, through Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, the Federal Government said that “First, the real issue is not a removal of subsidy. At $40 a barrel, there isn’t much of a subsidy to remove.
“We realised that we were left with only one option. This was to allow independent marketers and any Nigerian entity to source their own foreign exchange and import fuel. We expect that foreign exchange will be sourced at an average of about N285 to the dollar, (current interbank rate). They would then be restricted to selling at a price between N135 and N145 per litre.
What this meant was that marketers were importing fuel and selling as dictated by the market forces, with little government regulation to avoid excessive pricing of the sales of fuel to the Nigerian masses”.
Also speaking with Nigerians in October, 2016, in an interactive session in Berlin, Buhari said, “There are things that are happening, and if such had happened before, there would have been major riot, like the removal of subsidy on fuel.”
These are the reasons ADP said it was in total disbelief to hear that there was still anything called subsidy, associated with fuel.
“In a swift reaction, and to cover this fraud or probably to silence Nigerians who kept demanding for an explanation of this sudden subsidy claim,” the party noted that “Osinbajo told the nation that NNPC and not the Federal Government is responsible for the subsidy payment.
“NNPC and not the Federal Government pays for the fuel subsidy that has emerged with the N171 landing cost as against the official retail price of N145,” the ADP quoted Osinbajo as saying.
ADP said “This new claim has further angered Nigerians who couldn’t figure how NNPC became responsible for subsidy payment and not the Federal Government, more so that as an agency of government, NNPC can only spend money within the budget. Meanwhile, there has not been any budget for subsidy for two years running.
“Now to avoid the probing questions of Nigerians, NNPC GMD, Maikanti Baru, while responding to questions at Aso Rock Villa, after the Friday prayers, said that Buhari authorized the payment of subsidy for fuel.
“The practice has been that every monies collected by all Federal Government agencies and parastatals are mandatorily paid into the Treasury Single Account (TSA), from where approval is given for withdrawal, by same agencies in line with their budget. What this means is that NNPC has either not been paying into TSA or has been short paying. We must remember that just recently, a House committee discovered the sum of N50billion in NNPC secret account, outside the TSA. The NNPC was quick to say, Buhari ordered it to put the N50billion into such secret account. This is besides the $25billion contract it awarded without due process, which it also claimed, Buhari authorised,” the ADP argued.
The ADP, therefore, called on the Senate to do the needful by investigating the NNPC’s subsidy fraud, to save Nigeria from the monumental fraud supervised by Baru and his team at NNPC.