The Action Congress of Nigeria has said the Federal Government-ordered audit of all government institutions in the oil and gas sector, as well as the solid minerals resources sector, is programmed to fail because the government’s decision to oversee the probe is akin to a man being a judge in his own case.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Monday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the principle of fairness and the doctrine of separation of powers meant that any probe of institutions under the executive arm of government should be carried out by the National Assembly, in line with its oversight functions.
”It is therefore the National Assembly, rather than the executive, that should probe this revenue generating agencies in the oil and gas industry, as well as in the solid minerals sector, and we call on the National Assembly to be alive to its responsibilities,” it said.
ACN said while it does not intend to cast aspersion on any person or organisation, “we are constrained to raise issues concerning the two audit firms that have been named by the federal government to carry out the audit (Sada, Idris & Co for oil and gas, and Haruna, Yahaya & Co for solid minerals). What antecedents prepare them for such a massive task? And what similar audits have they successfully carried out that will give Nigerians the assurance that they will carry out an independent and credible audit this time.”
The party also called for the immediate implementation of the recommendations contained in the audit of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation by KPMG, at least to convince Nigerians that the outcome of the new audit on the oil and gas sector as well as the solid minerals sector will not be ignored.
Meanwhile ACN has criticised the Federal Government officials who have continued to sing discordant tunes and misinform Nigerians on the entire fuel subsidy scam, in order – it seems – to justify its desperate act of forcing the citizenry to pay for the waste and fraud of a few fat cats in the oil industry.
The party said: “The revelations at the ongoing fuel subsidy probe by the House of Representatives have been shocking, to say the least. For example, while the Petroleum Resources Minister put Nigeria’s daily fuel consumption at 52 million litres, NNPC said it is 35 million, Finance Minister said it is 40 million while DPR put it at 43 million.
“The same inconsistency was noted on the issue of fuel subsidy. The Petroleum Resources Minister put the figure at 1.4 trillion naira; Finance Minister put it at 1.3 trillion naira while the CBN said it is 1.7 trillion naira. Different figures were also given for the current production capacity of the local refineries by the NNPC (30%); PPPRA (20%), DPR (13%) and Petroleum Resources Minister (15%).
“How then can a government that does not have accurate basic facts about the oil industry and fuel subsidy determine the cost of a litre of petrol, diesel or kerosene? How can it determine the level of subsidy when it does not even know how much is being spent on the so-called subsidy? These revelations have confirmed what our party and other patriotic Nigerians have been saying all along, that the government is making Nigerians to pay for the inefficiency and corruption in the downstream oil sector and that there is indeed no subsidy.”
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