Senate Probes Oil Subsidy Payments, Under-recovery Under Buhari’s Govt

•Kicks against N9.3tn spent in 30 months  

•Demands construction of three new refineries

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

The Senate has resolved to probe payments made as oil subsidy and under-recovery by former President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.

The red chamber described as unacceptable, the N9.3 trillion which the Buhari’s administration claimed it expended on the subsidy regime from January 2021 to May 29, 2023.

The Upper Legislative Chamber urged the President Bola Tinubu’s administration to establish three functional refineries for local production and distribution of refined oil.

The chamber said doing so would reduce the pump price of petrol from the current N540 per litre to between N300 to N250 per litre.

It also appealed to the federal government to pay living wages to workers as a way of cushioning the effects of the subsidy removal.

The Senate’s resolutions followed a motion sponsored by Senator Chiwuba Ndubueze, an All Progressives Congress member, who is representing Imo North Senatorial District.

Ndubueze’s motion was titled, “Need to Investigate the controversial Huge Expenditure on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) under the subsidy/under-recovery regime by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).”

He said step taken by Tinubu on subsidy withdrawal on May 29, was commendable, but insisted that the subsidy regime must be investigated.

He specifically said the federal government within 10 years (2006 – 2015), spent N170 billion as under recovery through the NNPCL.

He, however, wondered how the Buhari’s government could spend N843.121 billion on under-recovery between January 2018 and January 2019.

The Senator said, “Very worrisome is the expenses made on subsidy/ under-recovery by NNPCL during the period under review, particularly from January 2021 to June 2023, when it claimed it spent N9.3 trillion.

“The money as shown by available records shows that in 2021, N1.42 trillion was expended; in 2022, it was N4.3 trillion and in the first six months of 2023, N3.6 trillion was spent, totalling, N9.3 trillion.”

Majority of the senators in their various contributions during the debate on the motion, frowned at bogus expenses made on the subsidy regime by NNPCL and supported all the prayers sought by the Senator in the motion.

The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, accordingly resolved that its standing committees on Petroleum ( Downstream ) , Petroleum ( Upstream ) and Finance, when constituted, should carry out an  holistic investigation into all the controversies surrounding subsidy and the under-recovery regime .

It also urged the NNPCL in conjunction with some major international oil companies (IOCs) in Nigeria, to form three different consortium and build three refineries for stabilisation of oil market and the nation’s economy generally.