Subsidy regime: CBN Gov, IGP, DSS DG, to appear before Reps today

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By Disun Amosun

As the House of Representatives digs deeper into the petrol subsidy regime, its ad-hoc Committee on the subject matter Tuesday invited the Governor of the

Central Bank of Nigeria CBN Godwin Emefiele, Inspector-General of Police, IGP Usman Alkali Baba and the Director-General Department of State Services, DSS Magaji Bichi to make inputs on the controversial policy that is further depleting the nation’s dwindling revenue.

Chairman of the House probe panel, Rep Almustapha Aliyu who announced this at the ongoing investigation into the trillions of naira payment of subsidy by the federal government of Nigeria to government agencies and oil marketers in Nigeria, gave Wednesday, August 31as the date for their appearances with a provision that they should appear in person.

The House panel is investigating key Ministries, Departments and Agencies MDAs of the government as well as oil marketing companies on the Direct Sale and Direct Purchase DSDS agreement entered into by key players on this issue

In a motion moved and adopted by the House in plenary, the Ad-hoc Committee was constituted to investigate why among other things the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation NNPC’s sale of crude oil at the international market stood at 445,000 barrels per day in order for the agency to import oil products locally.

It noted that due to the decline in the production capacity of the refineries, NNPC found it more convenient to export crude in exchange for petroleum products on a battery basis described as Direct Sale and Direct Purchase DSDS agreement.

The lawmakers are also perturbed that the component costs in the petroleum products subsidy value chain claimed by the NNPC is high while the transfer pump price per litre used by the NNPC in relation to PPMC is under quoted as N123-N128 instead of N162-N128 and this fraudulent under reporting translates into N70bn a month.

The House Committee also expressed worries over the fact that the subsidy regime has been unscrupulously used by the NNPC and other critical stakeholders to subvert the nation’s crude oil revenue to the tune of over $10 billion dollars with a record showing that as at 2021 over $7 billion in over 120 million barrels have been so diverted.