The Minister of Petroleum Resources, Dizeani Alison-Madueke, has denied any wrongdoing in the process of the disbursement of petroleum subsidy claims.
Alison-Madueke described the report of the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee on the fuel subsidy regime as unfair, saying there is no way she could be indicted.
Madueke, who spoke on Tuesday following the forwarding of the report to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission by the government, said: “May be there was another presidential directive that existed between 2006 and 2009 before I was appointed minister of petroleum.
“What I am aware of is that under Section 6 of the Petroleum Act, the Minister for Petroleum may, by notice, published in the official gazette, fix the price for petroleum products, which means that for a change to actually become a law, the Minister must publish in the media, to inform all stakeholders that that petroleum products price
has changed.
“I do not recall that that publication was done till 2009. If it is not published and gazetted, it was not a directive that can be legally complied with.
“The laws that we were given or the directive given by the current president, who put us in office, have in fact been complied with to the letter of the law.
“Therefore, they were published in the national papers in the media and gazetted.
“I do believe that this is clearly a matter of interpretation of the provisions of the constitution, vis-à-vis the provisions of the Appropriation Act.
“Such interpretative powers are vested exclusively in the judiciary of the country.
“It is only the courts of the land that are invested with the relevant powers and authorities to determine whether the Appropriation Act, on the basis of which NNPC, says it deducted at source, in conjunction with the constitution that allows NNPC to deduct subsidy claims from source or not.
“Considering that the issue is that of interpretation of the law, in which case the courts may take a different view from that taken by the House, it was probably quite unfair for the Committee to conclude that the minister did not take appropriate steps to stop the practice that has been on long before I came into appointment.”