Fuel Subsidy Report Debate: Lawmakers Go Hard on Ex-PPPRA Officials, Soft-pedal on Allison-Madueke

The House of Representatives went into a Committee of the Whole yesterday in order to deliberate on the ad hoc Committee’s report on fuel subsidy.

The house was unified in approving most of the recommendations set forth in the report.

Notably the representatives have called for the investigation and prosecution of the former Chairman of the PDP, Ahmadu Ali, for his role in the N 1 trillion subsidy scam. Ahmadu Ali was the Chairman of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) between 2009 and 2011.The lawmakers also called on the EFCC and other investigative bodies to mete out the same treatment for the Executive Secretaries of the PPPRA during that period. The affected former secretaries are Abiodun Ibikunle and Goddy Egbuji.

The PPPRA was where the Fuel Subsidy scam originated and spiraled out of control as it became an informal economy where fortunes were made overnight at the expense of the Nigerian people and their economy. The PPPRA effectively opened “the floodgates for the (subsidy) bazaar.”

The lawmakers appeared to soft pedal on Diezani Madueke, the Minister of Petroleum Resources as they did not call for any investigation into her office. The lawmakers did, however, adopt the recommendation of the report stating that the Ministry of Petroleum Resources should be divided into two separate ministries, one for upstream and the other for downstream.

The House also supported a motion that the 17 companies indicted in the report for failing to appear before the committee during its investigation be reinvited in order to provide the companies a chance to be fairly heard.

The companies are Mut-Has Petroleum Ltd, Nepal Oil and Gas Service, Oilbath Nigeria, Techno Oil Ltd, Somerset Energy Services, Stonebridge Oil Ltd, Mobil Oil Nigeria, AX Energy Limited, CAH Resources Association Limited, Crust Energy Limited, Fresh Synergy Limited and Ibafon Oil Limited, Lottoj Oil and Gas Limited, Oakfield Synergy Network Limited, Petro Trade Energy Limited, Prudent Energy & Service Limited and Rocky Energy Limited.

House spokesman Zakari Mohammed speaking with reporters yesterday on the re-invitation said:

“The truth of the matter is that we want to give them a fair hearing. We don’t want a situation where they‘ll take us to court. People shouldn’t take us to court for this kind of row; we should avoid it.

“If 17 companies say they were not invited or they did not get invited, or that we did not exhaust our legislative processes, the onus lies on us to give them fair hearing so that nobody rubbishes this report in the court of law.

“But in the court of people’s opinion, people know that these 17 companies are being economical with the truth. At the same time, we are giving them two weeks to come up and defend themselves.

“As far as we’re concerned, it does not change the decimal. It is still as constant as ever. The only thing is that we just want to avoid any avoidable pitfall. In two weeks, those two companies will be invited, and whatever the findings are like, it will come out as a supplementary report.”