The senate is set to look into subsidy claims oil marketers while also turning their search light on a possible fraud going on with subsidy claims.
The move which according to the senate president was as a result of their findings, where they discovered that the monies being collected for subsidy showed that government might be over paying for products not imported.
The senate president said the National Assembly touched on the ongoing fuel crisis In the country, insisting that the country on a daily basis consumes a total of 27 million litres of fuel, but oil marketers are claiming is 40million. This and three other issues, the Senate president promised to look at. In his post, he said:
Today, the Senate debated the interim report of the Senate Committee on Downstream Petroleum on the Fuel Scarcity Crisis in the country.
This debate centered around the ongoing scarcity, the subsidy regime and ways to make the oil and gas sector more efficient.
I spent a lot of time on this fuel subsidy issue during the Seventh Senate (2011 to 2015). It was my Motion that brought this topic to the national discourse — hence, it is something that I know a lot about.
There are three issues here that we need to separate:
The first is, even as we speak now, there are still queues. The issue of the ongoing scarcity is one problem that the Committee needs to go back to look into so that Nigerians can be reassured that this will not reoccur.
The second problem is that the subsidy is important, however, based on the figures that have been presented, it is clear that there is a bigger fraud that is being perpetrated. This is because the amount of PMS that is allegedly coming into Nigeria cannot be consumed by Nigerians. We consume about 27 million litres a day, while it has been alleged that 40 million litres a day of PMS is being brought in. There is a discrepancy somewhere.
At the end of the day, it is Nigerians that are paying for this subsidy fraud because it is not transparent, and it is only being run by one MDA.
The third problem has to do with the principle of MDAs incurring expenditures without the necessary approval by the legislature.
Therefore, in order to get to the bottom of these pressing issues, we will be breaking them up: -The issue of the subsidy and how it came about; as well as the issue of the scarcity that is still ongoing and the fraud of the volumes will go back to the Downstream Committee for a more comprehensive report; -While, the issue of unauthorized public spending in the sector will be looked into by the Public Accounts Committee….God bless Nigeria