Senate Vows To Unmask Subsidy Cabal As NNPC Receives N5.1tn Payments In Nine Years

Bukola Saraki, Senate President, has vowed to vigorously pursue investigations into the fuel subsidy regime he said is characterised by fraudulent activities as the NNPC acknowledged that over N5.1 trillion has been paid to it as subsidy between 2005 and 2015.

He said the fuel subsidy scheme designed for the benefit of poor Nigerians has become a cash cow for few people who continued to milk the country dry in trillions of naira.

The senate president spoke at the opening of an investigative hearing on fuel subsidy payments launched by the upper legislative chamber on Monday in Abuja.

“This Senate had cut short the end of year recess of this committee to immediately intervene and investigate the root causes of the recent resurfacing of queues at pump stations nationwide,” Saraki stated while flagging off the investigative hearing of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream).

“The findings of the committee have brought to light the fact that our downstream oil and gas industry needs critical reforms. It has exposed among other things that in spite of the stoppage of the fuel subsidy regime and the non-appropriation of funds for the scheme due to the fraud and maladministration going on in the scheme, that fuel subsidy payments continue to be paid from our commonwealth illegally and without appropriation by the National Assembly to a few quietly in order to dodge scrutiny and avoid exposure.

“But this 8th Senate is here to expose every corruption in the system irrespective of how highly placed those involved are and therefore the reason for this public hearing today,” he said.

The Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Maikanti Baru; and the Chief Finance Officer of the corporation, Isiaka Abdulrazak, told the committee the N5.1 trillion payments to the corporation were approved by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, adding that the federal government was still owing it more than N170.6 billion.

“We have it on record that NNPC incurred N5.1214tn as subsidy as approved by the regulatory agency, PPPRA, and it was only paid N4.9508tn. It is still being owed by the Federation N170.6bn,” Baru said.

Saraki said the fraudulent activities of the fuel subsidy cabal had continued unabated under a process so opaque and insulated from public scrutiny.

He noted that the Federal Government has failed to curb fraudulent practices associated with the fuel subsidy regime.

The Senate president said the Senate was working to unearth the subhead under which fuel subsidy had been funded without budgetary provision.

“For years, our country has been plagued with the issue of fuel subsidy and for too long, a scheme designed to reduce the burden on the poor has become the cash cow of a few who continue to milk the country dry in trillions under a process so opaque and insulated from public scrutiny called fuel subsidy,” Saraki said.

“You would recall that it was only after my motion on the 5th of March 2012, with the support of my colleagues in the 7th Senate and after a thorough review and investigation of the scheme we unearthed the monumental fraud bigger than our capital budget for a year going on in the name of fuel subsidy. Five years down the line we are back on the same matter. This is not acceptable and we are determined to get to the bottom of it.

“The mere fact that we are here again today (Monday) to discuss this issue shows that those who benefit from this grand deception are not willing to let loose and government had not done what we need to do to nip this problem in the bud.

“This unconstitutional and illegal practice must be addressed and we are not going to rest until it is fully addressed,” he stated.