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The House of Representatives has indicted the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) for its failure to include the volume of daily fuel consumption in Nigeria in its Report.
NPA’s indictment came in the heels of discovery of a Committee of the House probing the volume of daily fuel consumption in the country.
The Committee had discovered that there were discrepancies in the number of seized oil vessels by the Nigerian Navy that are in NPA’s custody, and insisted that it will have to inspect oil vessels physically.
The chairman of the Committee, Abdulkadiri Abdullahi, who made the revelation in Abuja on Wednesday when the NPA, led by its Executive Director, Marine and Operation, Mr Onari Brown appeared before it, said his Committee would proceed to inspect and verify the seized oil vessels.
Abdullahi queried the exclusion of the volume of fuel consumed daily in the report presented by the NPA, saying the committee saw it as a deliberate attempt.
He observed that the NPA needed to include date and the time the vessels arrived in Nigeria, stressing that the Committee would get a suitable date for an oversight on the matter.
According to him,“we will pick up a time to do an oversight for this because we see discrepancies in what NPA is saying.
“If all the vessels arrested are being brought to you, we need to identify and see them, the Nigeria Navy told us that all seized vessels are dropped in your premises,” Abdullahi said.
He urged the NPA to also rearrange its presentations and include payment of charges it got quarterly and the volume.
Abdullahi explained that the Committee had given the NPA until November. 17 to reappear before it for further investigation, while urging the Authority to come with all records of payment to the NNPC.
Earlier, Brown had assured that he would not in any way hide information from the Committee, adding: ”I will never in any way disrespect this House. I was once a member and I know the implication of hiding information.”
He said by not showing the record of fuel consumed daily in the document presented was an error which would be corrected, stressing that no imported products came into the country without the knowledge of NPA.
“For imported products, there is no way a ship will come and we will not know.
“Only NNPC brings fuel to Nigeria as far as NPA is concerned. We do not recognise any other person and we do not deal with any other,” Brown said.
Also, the Ministry of Petroleum decried the lack of synergy among agencies under the ministry.
Mr. Mohammed Mohammed, Director Downstream, told the Committee that the problem with synergy was that the ministry did not get most of the information it needed from the Agencies.
He said it was always difficult to interface with the Agencies, adding that the ministry had not received updates on all the issues raised for it to be able to study them, including the mainstream.
“Maybe, the National Assembly will use its position to stress on synergy.
“I do not have the information of how much we are consuming, I am just a new person,” Mohammed said.
The Committee, however, asked the ministry of Petroleum Resources to put its grievances down in writing.
The chairman of the committee recalled that the Permanent Secretary of the ministry was believed to have owned up that the country consumed 38 million liters of PMS otherwise called petrol, daily.
Abdullahi subsequently asked the Ministry to appear before the Committee again on November. 14 at 2 p.m. for further investigations.
Controversies have for some times now dogged the volumes of fuel consumption in the country.
Both the NNPC and the apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have bandied discordant figures of daily fuel consumption in the country, thus raising a big question mark on the humongous amount being claimed for the payment of fuel subsidy monthly.
