Senate Committee says Oil Minister has several queries to answer

The Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) has indicated that it may invite the Minister for Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Madueke to shed more light on certain transactions involving the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation which may have cost or continue to cost Nigerians billions of dollars in losses.

The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Magnus Abe told journalists in Abuja on Sunday that the ministry had continued to withhold information on financial transactions requested by oversight committees since October 2013.

Furthermore the Ministry has consistently refused to furnish the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives with information related to alleged illegal private jet expenses incurred by the minister.

Abe said, “We have not informed the minister of the delay from the NNPC and there are issues we know will involve the minister but I don’t think this, at this point, involves the minister. But if we can’t resolve it, we will ask the minister to come with them. At the moment, it is between the committee and the NNPC. The NNPC is a corporation. We believe we can sort this out.

“We asked about the crude swap transactions, to know exactly what volumes are being swapped, what the country is getting in return. We haven’t seen that. We also wanted information on the rehabilitation of the refineries to know exactly how far they have gone with those programmes, we haven’t seen that.

“We wanted information about the volumes of products that are being sold via the PPMC. We actually haven’t seen that. We wanted information on the aircraft that has now become an issue. We’ve actually asked for this information since last year and we haven’t seen that. So, there are lots of what I would call routine information from the NNPC which should be between us, the committee and the NNPC. Oversight is not just visiting the facilities to walk around.

“It also involves taking a detailed look at how things are done, what’s being done and how the country is benefitting from some of these things that are happening and how we can work together to improve what is being done. Unfortunately however, we haven’t received the kind of cooperation I would like to see from the NNPC and we are still believing they would step up their game and work with us so that we can get the best for the  Nigerian people.”