The report of the House of Representatives probe of the management of fuel subsidy funds may be delayed due to conflicting figures submitted to it by government agencies and fuel marketers.
Findings by The PUNCH on Tuesday indicated that the much-awaited report might not be made available for at least three weeks as the committee had to sift through conflicting figures.A committee member told our correspondent in Abuja on Tuesday that the figures submitted by fuel marketers and regulators did not tally.
The source, who pleaded anonymity, said, “We have been battling with tonnes and tonnes of documents in the past few weeks.
“A major challenge has been the conflicting figures before the committee. The Ministry of Finance, the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company all gave us conflicting figures.
“Fuel marketers and contractors who imported petroleum products also gave the committee conflicting figures. In many areas, you can hardly find figures tallying.”
THE PUNCH gathered that the panel was still unable to establish the average daily consumption rate of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) for instance, in the country.
Incidentally, establishing the daily consumption figure is one of the core terms of reference of the committee headed by Mr. Farouk Lawan.
Another source in the committee added, “In the light of the conflicting figures, the committee is still going through documents to ascertain the daily consumption rate of petrol.
“While some of the government agencies quoted 35 million litres as daily consumption, others said it was 59 million litres.
“There are other documents claiming that Nigeria does not consume anything near 35 million litres per day.
“So, it is a painstaking process and the committee is taking its time to arrive at the average figure.”
From around N620bn paid as subsidy claims in 2010, testimonies during the committee’s public hearings indicated that “by December 31, 2011, claims rose to over N1.7tn.”
Investigations showed that the committee had “dozens of documents” of subsidy claims for 2011, with none agreeing with the other.
Some documents quoted N1.3tn, others N1.4tn, while a particular document from the CBN gave the “actual subsidy payment” as N1.7tn.
The source said, “Already, there is a provision of about N155bn in the 2012 budget for arrears of subsidy claims for 2011.
“During the public hearing, many marketers told the committee that they were owed billions of naira.
“We are looking at over N2tn; so the committee has to reconcile all these figures to come up with a reliable position.”
The committee described 2011 as an “interesting year in subsidy claims where the number of fuel-importing contractors jumped from 49 to 140.”
However, when contacted, Lawan said that the report could take between one and two weeks before it would be ready.
When asked why the panel had been unable to produce a report within one month, considering the urgency of its assignment, Lawan said the committee members were having “sleepless nights working on documents.”
He confirmed that conflicting figures and documents were posing a challenge to the committee, but disagreed that the panel was not working hard enough.
Lawan said, “The work we are doing is not easy. We have been extremely busy studying many documents so that we can get a report that will answer many questions.”
He admitted that there was neither an agreed figure for daily consumption of products nor the exact amount drawn as subsidy claims in 2011 yet.
“But, I think that no matter what, in another one or two weeks, we should be able to tidy up our work and produce the report of our findings,” he stated.
However, the panel has reportedly established from preliminary findings that there is large-scale corruption, round-tripping and abuse of due process in the oil industry.
A member of the House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) who pleaded anonymity, said, “Cleary, products were diverted and smuggled out of the country; there is evidence of contracts not being executed. Several areas in the industry require a separate investigation, which will generate mind-boggling revelations.
“Nobody is asking questions about crude sales, the management of refinery contracts and so on.”
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