By Nathaniel Zacchaeus, Abuja
The Senate passed a resolution yesterday to investigate all payments made by former President Muhammadu Buhari’s government as oil subsidy and under-recovery.
It described as scandalous, the N9.3trn which the Buhari administration claimed it expended on the subsidy/under-recovery regime from January 2021 to May 29, 2023.
The Upper Legislative Chamber also urged President Bola Tinubu’s administration to establish three functional refineries for the local production and distribution of refined oil.
The chamber said doing so would reduce the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as petrol, from the current N540 per litre to between N300 to N250 per litre.
It also appealed to the Federal Government to pay living wages to workers as a way of cushioning the effects of the subsidy removal.
The Senate’s resolutions were sequel to a motion sponsored by Senator Chiwuba Ndubueze, an All Progressives Congress (APC) member, who is representing Imo North Senatorial District.
Ndubueze’s motion was titled: Need to investigate the controversial huge expenditure on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) under the subsidy/under-recovery regime by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
He said the step taken by Tinubu on subsidy withdrawal on May 29, was commendable but insisted that the subsidy regime must be investigated.
He wondered why the Federal Government within 10 years (2006 – 2015), spent N170bn as under-recovery through the NNPCL and Buhari’s claimed it expended N843.121bn as under-recovery between January 2018 and January 2019.
The Senator said, “Very worrisome is the expenses made on subsidy/under-recovery by NNPCL during the period under review, particularly from January 2021 to June 2023, was N9.3trn claimed to have been spent.
“The money as shown by available records shows that in 2021, N1.42trn was expended. In 2022, it was N4.3trn and in the first six months of 2023, N3.6trn was spent, totalling N9.3trn.”
The majority of the senators in their various contributions during the debate on the motion, frowned at bogus expenses made on the subsidy regime by NNPCL and supported all the prayers sought by the Senator in the motion.
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, accordingly resolved that its standing committees on Petroleum (Downstream), Petroleum (Upstream), and Finance, when constituted, should carry out a holistic investigation into all the controversies surrounding subsidy and the under-recovery regime.
*Urges FG, IOCs to establish three refineries
It also urged the NNPCL in conjunction with some major international oil companies (IOCs) in Nigeria, to form three different consortiums and build three refineries for stabilisation of the oil market and the nation’s economy generally.
