Senate accuses NNPC of abuse of products marketing, distribution

• set up committee to investigates accounts

The Nigerian Senate on Wednesday alleged corruption in the marketing of products as well as in accounts operated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) between 2006 and 2016.

Consequently, the Senate resolved to mandate its committee on petroleum (downstream) to “exhaustively” investigate the state-owned oil corporation over its accounts relating to fuel subsidy and alleged abuse of product marketing and distribution.

The Senate’s resolution followed a motion by Dino Melaye (APC-Kogi West) who expressed worry that corruption in the NNPC persists despite the anti-corruption posture of the Muhammadu Buhari-administration.

“The independent marketers account for 49 per cent of the imported petroleum products while NNPC accounts for 51 per cent of imported products, but this does not justify the huge amount it has been paid as subsidy in the last 10years,” Melaye said.

He added that excess products were sold off illegally and in opaque manner to private tank owners.

“(This is) usually designed to rip off the public and enrich few persons stupendously at the expense of the masses,” he said.

“Since this administration clamped down on subsidy, NNPC has been solely responsible for retail with companies paying 20-25 naira for the sale of this product which amounts to over N2 billion naira monthly.

“These monies are not accounted for and might be the reason why we now see dollars buried in caskets and in uncompleted buildings in remote villages in some parts of the country.”

After contributions from Akpan Bassey (PDP-Akwa Ibom) who said he aware of the claims made by Melaye; and George Sekibo (PDP-Rivers) who urged “wholehearted” support for the current administration’s anti-graft campaign, the motion was unanimously supported by the Senators.

In his remarks, Saraki said the committee chaired by Kabiru Marafa (APC-Zamfara) should thoroughly conduct the investigation and come up with a report “as soon as possible”. 

Similarly, the lower chamber of the National Assembly, the House of Representatives has expressed its displeasure with the Central Bank Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Finance over unpaid capital shares to the Bank of Agriculture (BoA)

This was sequel to a unanimous adoption of a motion by Rep. Femi Fayeke (Osun-APC) at the plenary in Abuja on Wednesday.

Fayeke had in the motion said that the CBN and the Finance Ministry, as major shareholders of BoA, were yet to remit N20 billion and N30 billion, respectively, for the effective running of the bank.

According to him, the CBN and the Federal Ministry of Finance had only paid N4 billion and N27 billion on their respective stakes in the bank, adding that CBN had an outstanding of N15.9 billion and Federal Ministry of Finance, N2.2 billion to remit.

He said that successive management of BoA had tried to recover the outstanding amounts over the years to enable the bank to fulfil its mandate but could not.