The House of Representatives has said that Nigerians pay daily subsidy on 24 million litres of fuel which is diverted to neighbouring countries.
The Chairman of the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the fuel subsidy management, Hon. Farouk Lawan, said that a differential of 24 million litres was detected per day, on which the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency collect subsidy funds.
Lawan, at the resumed hearing of the House on the subsidy brouhaha, said that both the NNPC and PPPRA collect subsidy funds on 59 million litres daily whereas the local consumption is put at 35 million litres.
He said: “The difference between the discharge and the consumption is actually 24 million litres per day. Because if the subsidy you pay is for 59 million litres per day and the consumption is 35 million litres per day then you are talking of 24 million litres which Nigerians are paying for but for which they do not consume.”
Lawan spoke after the committee listened to the Executive Secretary of the PPPR, Stanley Reginald, who said that Nigeria imports 59 million litres but consumes only 35 million litres.
Lawan vowed that his committee would get to the root of the fraud.
Reginald, who could not provide satisfactory explanations to the members of the committee, said that the subsidy paid included the cost of five days demurrage and other cost elements on imported fuel based on the approval of the PPPRA Board.
Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Austen Oniwon, told the committee that the full benefit of the proposed building of three new refineries and the Turnaround Maintenance of the existing four refineries may not be realised if the spate of vandalism of oil pipelines is not eradicated.
Oniwon said that the TAM would be solely financed by the NNPC from its Internally Generated Revenue.
He said that there was, however, the need to combat the menace of oil pipeline vandals.
On Tuesday, the Nigeria Customs Services and Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative had indicted the management of both the NNPC and the PPPRA for under the table dealing in petroleum products importation before the House ad hoc committee.
Follow The Eagle Online Channel on WhatsApp
