15 April 2014, Abuja – Nigeria’s embattled petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, may be summoned separately by the Senate over alleged shady deals by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and her alleged spending of at least N10 billion public funds on chartered private flights, the senate petroleum committee said Sunday.
The House of Representatives is currently probing the allegations.
Mrs. Alison-Madueke is currently President Goodluck Jonathan’s most controversial cabinet member and has survived multiple indictments by the National Assembly demanding her removal over alleged mismanagement of the oil sector.
The House of Representatives opened a new round of investigation three weeks back over revelation the minister spent billions of public funds to charter and maintain high end flights for largely personal trips.
The Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) on Sunday threatened to invite the minister to furnish it with those details and those of other NNPC financial transactions.
The committee said the corporation’s management had continuously failed to provide the committee with details of its financial transactions, claiming that it was still collating the financial information being required.
The Chairman of the committee, Magnus Abe (PDP-Rivers), said should the NNPC continue to delay submission of the financial records, the committee would be compelled to summon the minister to appear before it with relevant financial details.
He said that the committee required to be furnished with documents relating to the financial dealings of the oil corporation since 2012 as well as the alleged N10 billion private jets.
According to him, some of the issues include crude swap transactions, rehabilitation of refineries, the volume of petroleum products being sold by the Petroleum Products Marketing Company.
“We have not informed the minister of the delay from NNPC and there are issues we know the minister will be involved but not at this point,” he said.
“But if we cannot resolve it, we will ask the minister to come with NNPC, but at the moment, it is between the committee and NNPC. We can sort this out.
– Premium Times
