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…Say national oil company now drainpipe
From Fred Itua, Abuja
Apparently disturbed by frequent discoveries of billions of naira frittered away by revenue generating agencies of the Federal Government, the Senate Committee on Finance, yesterday, hinted it was considering a move for the liquidation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
A member of the committee, Senator Yusuf Abubakar Yusuf, while deploring the development cited frequent financial leakages observed in revenue generating agencies as part of the reasons yearly budgets are not properly funded.
The Taraba-born Senator, who spoke at the budget defence of the Ministry of Finance, asked pointedly whether NNPC had been cooperating with relevant agencies in disclosing its financial transactions. He said there was no doubt that NNPC had become a drainpipe doing what it chooses without respect to any constituted authority.
The lawmaker said, “we are talking about leakages; is NNPC cooperating? Why can’t we liquidate NNPC? It is better we liquidate NNPC because it is no longer relevant. It does not respect anybody. It does not respect us. NNPC has become a drainpipe that should be liquidated.”
Senator Usman Bayero Nafada, from Gombe State, for his part said the findings of the investigation of revenue generating agencies should bother the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun.
He noted that the failure to fund annual budgets should be traced to massive financial leakages in government agencies. Loss of huge revenue, he said, should be a source of concern to the minister.
Earlier, Adeosun had told the committee that her ministry has started scrutinising the budget of agencies, which was not the case in the past, saying that unnecessary budgetary line items are being removed.
The minister conceded that, “there is still a lot of latitude in the agencies that should return money to government.”
Senator Yahaya Abdullahi asked the Finance Minister why the implementation of the 2017 budget was being truncated “simply because you want to normalise the budget year.”
Abdullahi said observations showed that the 2018 budget proposal has no bearing with the 2017 budget as passed by the National Assembly.
