No fuel subsidy removal-Senate

The Senate, on Thursday, unanimously rejected the recommendation of its Committee on Finance, which asked the Federal Government to remove the   subsidy on petroleum products. “If subsidy has to be removed, there must be public enlightenment and education so that facts would be made available to the people and then public opinion at the end of the day will count...

“If we sit here now and said remove subsidy, I think those who are benefitting from subsidy are very powerful and tomorrow they would influence media report and twist it to create an impression that the Senate is anti-people,” President of the Senate said in his remarks after the Senate had rejected the proposal for subsidy removal. The finance committee had recommended the removal of subsidy on fuel because of the alleged misapplication of the billions of dollars being voted annually for that purpose. The Senate rejected the recommendation while adopting the report of the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led committee. The senators however approved the committee’s recommendation that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation should refund to the Federation Account, the total sum of $218,069,354.32, being the balance of the gross lifting under the third party financing. They also directed that inter-agencies reconciliation meetings between government institutions, including the Ministry of Finance, NNPC, CBN and the Federal Inland Revenue Service should be done on a regular basis. It said such regular meetings among those sensitive economic institutions would prevent a recurrence of the situation and ensure that all revenues were properly and legally accounted for.

The Senate rejected the committee proposal to accept the N813.8bn subsidy deductions by the NNPC from January 2012 to July 2013, since it was certified by the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency and appropriated by the National Assembly. It however accepted the subsidy deducted by the NNPC in the sum of N180bn for the fourth quarter of 2011, which was also certified by the PPPRA and appropriated by the National Assembly. It advised the NNPC not pay its operational expenditures directly from the Federation Fund without appropriation by the National Assembly, saying the government oil corporation should strictly adhere to international best practises in keeping records. It also cautioned that the NNPC should not control the revenue account of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company so as not to undermine its separate legal status and make accountability more difficult. Senate President, David Mark, commended the committee for presenting a courageous report based on the facts that were presented to it, stressing that members were forthright by paying attention to details in the course of their assignment