President Bola Tinubu has recommended that the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act be amended to include N500 billion for palliatives to mitigate the effects of the elimination of the petrol subsidy on citizens.
This was said in a letter read in plenary yesterday to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas.
The letter read: “I write to request for the amendment of the 2022 supplementary Appropriation Act. The request became necessary to provide necessary palliatives to mitigate the effects of the removal of fuel subsidy on Nigerians.
“Thus, the sum of N500 billion has been extracted from the 2022 supplementary appropriation act of N819.536 billion for the provisions of palliatives to cushion the effects of subsidy removal. I seek the expeditious consideration of this request.”
The speaker said the lawmakers would consider Tinubu’s request at plenary today and asked members who would make contributions to be prepared to do so.
The House also resolved to probe the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) over alleged fictitious contract awards, mismanagement and lopsided placement or directors.
This is as it is also set to commence the probe of alleged crude oil theft and loss of revenue in the oil and gas sector of the economy.
The House also resolved to set up an Ad-hoc Committee to undertake the investigation and report back to it within four weeks for further legislative actions.
In the case of NIMASA, the probe followed the adoption of a motion by the minority leader, Kingsley Chinda and four others, imploring the House to investigate alleged unwholesome practices by the management of NIMASA.
Chinda, in his lead debate, noted that there have been alleged award of questionable contracts, fraudulent forex transactions and lopsided placement of directors in the agency.
“There have been several allegations of questionable, inflated and fictitious contract awards particularly for non-operational speed boats, security surveillance contracts and Deep Blue Water Contract, revenue leakages and the award of contracts to cronies of the Director-General and other top management staff of the agency.”
The lawmaker noted that there were also allegations of under-remittance of debts owed the country by shipping firms, with the consent and connivance of the agency.
Chinda added that there were allegations that NIMASA allegedly entered into a questionable contract with a firm (name withheld ) “for the lease of six speed boats, each at the rate of $173,930 monthly, without a need Assessment for such facility being carried out by the relevant departments of the agency.
“The security surveillance contract called Deep Blue Water Contract’ is suspected to be a conduit by the management of the agency to pilfer funds.
“A security contract tagged National Integrated Surveillance and Waterways Protection’ is also said to have been awarded to an Israeli firm( names withheld) at the cost of $195,300,000, despite an existing facility, which is a simple internet subscription via Lloyds Intelligence Platform for such operations.
“There is evidence that the agency’s legal department counseled against the consummation of the contract on grounds of some fraudulent claims in the agreement, but same was not heeded to.
“The lawmakers, while calling on intervention of the parliament, said “unless and until this is done, the Federal Government would continue to lose huge sums of money to an unconscionable and fraudulent cabal who are hell bent on sucking the country dry.”
In another motion, the House resolved to probe alleged crude oil theft and loss of revenue in the oil and gas sector.
Consequently, the House resolved to set up an ad-hoc committee to undertake the probe to ensure that everyone complicit is brought to book. The committee is expected to report back within six weeks for the further legislative actions.
This followed the adoption of a motion by Philip Agbese, calling on the House to investigate alleged crude oil theft in the country.
Agbese, in his motion, noted that recently there have been reports of loss of trillions of naira from crude oil theft and loss of revenue from oil and gas exploration in the country.
“According to reports, about 40 percent of crude oil loss is due to inaccuracies in measurement, and theft as metering errors continue to occur as a result of poor maintenance of metering facilities, thus resulting to lack of transparency in hydrocarbon accounting.”
Agbese expressed concern about recent “reports which revealed that in 2021 alone, Nigeria lost $4 billion to oil theft at the rate of 200,000 barrels per day, and the figures have risen since then.
“Also concerned that security agencies of the Federal Government are allegedly complicit and largely responsible for facilitating most of the oil theft in the Niger Delta. The Nigerian military has been accused several times of being behind 99 percent of oil theft and despite promises to conduct proper investigations, no substantial action has been taken by the Federal Government to address the matters raised.”
According to him, “a 2022 report by the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative ( NEITI) that about 619.7 million barrels of crude oil , valued at $46.16billion have been stolen in the last 12 years, while stakeholders have often described crude oil theft in the country as an organized crime perpetrated by the Nigerian elite.”
The lawmaker added that it is worrisome “that in spite of the huge funds appropriated to adequately equip Nigeria’s security and intelligence agencies, their performance in terms of curbing oil theft has been abysmal.”