By Lawrence Olaoye
There are indications that the House of Representatives may have chosen a confrontational path with the Presidency over the alleged refusal of the key ministers involved in the alleged non-remittance of the sum of N450 billion into the coffers of the government by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Sequel to the motion introduced by Rep Samson Osagie (ACN Edo) on the need to investigate the NNPC for non-remittance of revenue generated over some time, the House resolved to set up an ad-hoc joint committee consisting of Finance, Upstream and Downstream as well as Gas committees.
The ad-hoc committee charged with the responsibility of investigating the allegation was chaired by the Finance Committee Chairman, Rep Abdumumini Jibrin. Although invitations were dispatched to the concerned ministries and government agencies for the probe, some key ministers, critical to the investigations, could not make it to the National Assembly.
Minister for Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and her Petroleum Resources counterpart, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke could not attend the probe. Madueke however sent a director from her ministry to represent her but the panel insisted on having the ministers to answer certain questions.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, also did not honour the invitation to appear before the panel. The non-appearance of the ministers and the CBN governor has fuelled the insinuations that the officials might be deliberately avoiding the lawmakers on the matter.
The investigative hearing which was however suspended by the committee till next week because those considered important in the probe were not present.
Although it was later learnt that the duo of Okonjo-Iwaela and Allison-Madueke were on President Goodluck Jonathan's delegation to Australia for CHOGOM meeting, lawmakers descended heavily on them threatening to invoke their parliamentary power to issue a warrant of arrest on the absentee officials.
Underscoring the importance of the probe, Speaker Aminu Tambuwal said "Let me state that public allegations bordering on lack of transparency against persons, agencies or corporations are grave enough and deserving of prompt action by the Representatives of the people who, by oath, are under a duty to uphold and defend this Constitution.".
Co-Chair and the Chairman of the House committee on Petroleum Resources, (Upstream), Rep. Ajibola Muraina cited section 88 and 89 of the 1999 constitution as amended pointing out the power of the House to carry out investigation and order the arrest of any erring public official.
He said "the situation we are has brought us the inability to do things right; the House is using this opportunity to assure Nigerians that we are prepared to champion that things are done properly; we do not believe in taking excuses, therefore it is not going to be business as usual in line with the new legislative agenda of the House."
Jibril who took a swipe at the officials for non-transparence said "The embarrassing issue of non-remittance of N450 billion Domestic Crude revenues by NNPC could have been avoided with transparent accounting for our revenues.
"More worrisome is the fact that the un-remitted funds are known to be in excess of N700 billion. Our journey towards vision 20:2020 cannot be realized with a whopping sum of N1.5 Trillion being paid as subsidy on petroleum products just in one year, without empirical basis."
"Despite the enormous revenue accruing from crude oil sales every day, we have continued to operate deficit budget simply because of our inability to track our revenues", he added.
He explained that the over $50 billion dollars of crude oil revenue is still trapped in the hands of the major lifters of Nigeria crude oil with the knowledge of NNPC. "Our Excess Crude Account which has been re-named "Sovereign Wealth Funds" has been so bastardized that over $5 billion was appropriated through the back door without parliamentary approval.
"NNPC religiously takes 445,000 barrels Domestic crude per day at below commercial rate, exports petroleum products tilt below import price, claims NPA charges as part of its cost but remains a major debtor to NPA; charges regular demurrage on petroleum products imports as if our ports are always congested; under-declares revenue from Federation crude and still turns around to claim huge subsidy from the Federation", he alleged.
"As a manager of the nation's oil industry and overseer of Joint Venture arrangements, NNPC has created other arrangements such as "Carry Agreements" with IOC's which have turned out to be another drainpipe on the Federation's revenue as over $12 billion have been lost," he noted.
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