From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
House of Representatives, yesterday, resolved to investigate calls for the suspension of the Chief Executive, Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Authority (NMDPRA), Farouk Ahmed, over alleged unguarded comments against local refineries in the country.
Consequently, the House mandated its Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) and Petroleum Resources (Midstream) to undertake the probe and report back to the House for further legislative action.
The joint committee is currently investigating alleged importation of adulterated petroleum products and scarcity of crude oil for local refineries in the country.
This followed the adoption of a motion by Esosa Iyawe “on urgent need to address outrage resulting from alleged unguarded comment” by the NMDPRA boss.
NMDPRA and Dangote refinery have been engaged in a war of words over the quality of petroleum marketed by the latter.
However, Iyawe, in his motion, informed the House that “recently, the chief executive of NMDPRA said the diesel produced by the Dangote refinery is inferior to the ones imported into the country, and that their fuel had a large content of Sulphur, which he put at between 650 to 1,200ppm ppm.
“In its defence, Dangote called for a test of its products, which was supervised by members of the House of Representatives, wherein it was revealed that Dangote’s diesel had a Sulphur content of 87.6 ppm (parts per million), whereas the other two samples diesel imported showed Sulphur levels exceeding 1800 ppm and 2000 ppm respectively, thus disproving the allegations made by the NMDPRA boss.”
The lawmaker added that there have also been allegations that the NMDPRA was issuing licenses to “some traders that regularly import high-Sulphur content diesel into Nigeria, and the use of such products poses grave health risks and huge financial losses for Nigerians.”
He argued that the statement by Ahmed, allegedly without prior investigation, was “not only unprofessional, but also unpatriotic especially in the face of the recent calls for protest against the Federal Government.”
Consequently, Iyawe called on the Federal Government to suspend the NMDPRA boss pending the conclusion of investigations into the allegations against the agency.