Mkpoikana Udoma 26 April 2918, Sweetcrude, Port Harcourt — The Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum Downstream, Sen. Kabiru Marafa, has…
Browsing: Sen. Kabiru Marafa
“During our recess, the committee moved around some cities, including Abuja and Lagos, to ascertain the situation on ground. When we thought that we were making progress, we just realised that the queues were resurfacing in fuel stations.”
He lamented that with the current unprecedented average daily fuel evacuation of 55 million litres since 1st December 2017 to date, it was imperative for the security agencies to close-in on the smuggling syndicates who were cashing in on the obvious petrol price differentials between Nigeria and neighboring countries to make illicit profit.
“The NNPC Act is a law on itself and the National Assembly is the one responsible for enacting laws, so, if there is any remedy or solution; as one of the senators, the issue is look into the Act establishing these entities; NNPC,CBN etc.”
Sen. Marafa lamented the amount paid by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was not approved by the National Assembly as required by law.
The minister disclosed further that as a result of the N26 difference per litre between the current landing cost of the product (N171) and pump price of N145, NNPC which had been singularly importing the product at the volume of 25 million litres per day since October last year, has been incurring a daily loss of about N800-N900 million, cumulatively reaching N85.5billion today, in just three months.
The three men, including Alhaji Abdullahi Sanusi Fari, Elder Chinedu Okorokwo and Mr. Obasi Lawson, all stood up to introduce themselves as ‘National President’ of the association, causing a stir at the event.
“There is a deep-seated conflict of interest in the downstream sector; regulators are operators, regulators are importers, importers are products hoarders, regulators are also saboteurs, definitely we have a sector capture in our hands, Nigeria and Nigerians need liberation,” he remarked.
He said, “First things first; the welfare of Nigerians especially in this season is that a lot of them will be travelling to reunite with their love ones is paramount. We will take time out to embark on a serious oversight. We will break into sub-committees to be able to cover the entire country.”
This is the latest legislative action in the Federal government’s efforts to reform the nation’s oil and gas industry. They bills are parts of the Petroleum Industry Bill, now split into several bills.
