.Senate approves N129b payment to 67 oil marketers
The Senate, yesterday, revealed that the Federal Government spent a whopping sum of N11 trillion, being payments made to oil marketers as subsidy in the last six years.
It warned that the subsidy must be stopped or it could kill the nation’s economy.
The apex legislative chamber made the revelation while considering the report of its Committee on Downstream (Petroleum Sector) on Promissory Note Programme and Bond Issuance for Oil Marketers’ Outstanding Claims.
While presenting the report, the chairman of the committee, Senator Kabir Marafa, told his colleagues that Nigeria spent over N11 trillion to pay outstanding
subsidy claims in the last six years.
The revelation came just as the lawmakers approved the payment of additional N129 billion subsidy claims to 67 petroleum marketers.
The Senate had, earlier on Tuesday, approved the payment of N68.9 billion as subsidy claims to 20 petroleum marketers.
Part of the report reads:
“That due to scarcity of forex within the period, oil marketing companies were allowed to source forex outside CBN rate to enable them meet the country’s petroleum products demand.
“That NNPC Retail get their petroleum product allocation directly from PPPMC at already subsidized rate and so does not require forex to transact its business.”
Some of the oil marketers and the amount approved for them include: Total Nigeria Plc. N13.7 billion; Northwest Petroleum N11.4 billion; Masters Energy N10 billion; MRS Oil PLC N8.8 billion and Sahara Energy N8.4 billion.
Others are: MRS Oil & Gas Limited N6.3 billion; Nipco Plc. N4.2 billion; Forte Oil N3.9 billion; DEEJONES Petroleum & Gas N4.1 billion; Emadeb N4 billion, among others.
However, before approving the payment, the legislators berated the Federal Government for paying subsidy to oil marketers over the years without the Senate’s approval. Contributing to the debate on the report, Senator Barnabas Gemade expressed serious concerns that the Federal Government and the anti-graft agencies had failed to convict any of the oil marketers who were indicted in the illegal subsidy claims.
He noted with regret that the government had not done enough in bringing the owners of the affected 50 oil firms to justice many years after their prosecution.
“What has happened to those who defrauded the nation? I believe that the 9th Senate will do justice to know what has happened to this money,” he said.
Gemade also reminded the Muhammadu Buhariled government of its pledge on subsidy payment when it came into government in 2015, saying “the government should stand by its words. If the government fails to end the subsidy regime, it will kill the Nigerian economy and all of us will be accused.”
Others who contributed and condemned the subsidy payment were, Senators Bassey Akpan, Victor Umeh and Mathew Uroghide. Umeh said: “If we continue to hope that one day this subsidy will end, we are deceiving ourselves. What would Nigerians face after this payment of arrears? People in government have refused to face the problem. Everyone is depending on oil revenue and yet no functional refineries have been put in place.
“The government should be able to plan to build five refineries, why can’t we use the money we get from sale of our crude to build refineries? The government should give us a programme to enable us have four functional refineries in five years. Exchange rates are not the problem, but our inability to do what others are doing is the main issue.”
Uroghide, in his contribution, said, “government should be serious in their policies and not be directionless in executing these policies.” The Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, said: “I hope that the next Assembly will be able to sit with the Executive to address this issue and resolve it without creating unnecessary tension.
“The NNPC needs to also caution itself so that they do not encroach on the appropriation responsibility of the National Assembly.
“We need to do something about provisions of refineries in our country – it is not rocket science. Even if it does not resolve the issue of subsidy, we would have gone a long way in addressing it.”