The Senate and the House of Representatives on Tuesday passed the N574bn Supplementary Appropriation Bill which was N108bn higher than the N465bn figure contained in the document, as presented to the upper chamber two weeks ago by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, while presenting his report on the legislative action carried out on the document, explained that 90 per cent of the budget size was meant for the payment of subsidy to major oil marketers that imports 52 per cent of the product.
But the report failed to identify the beneficiaries of the subsidy among the major oil marketers, neither did it also contain details of the disbursement.
Apart from this, the committee in its report did not mention anything about the amount being paid to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation as subsidy on the 48 per cent of petrol being imported by the Pipeline Products and Marketing Company, which had never been approved by the National Assembly.
Rather, Goje explained that the provisions for subsidy payment, contained in the document, “covers N120.5bn being arrears of 2014; N292.8bn subsidy claims from January to September 2015; and N108.8bn being subsidy claims for the last quarter of 2015” which was not captured in the appropriation bill sent by Buhari.
He added that the N5bn Victim Support Fund hitherto contained in the document under the capital supplementation had been moved to the Service Wide Vote since it was a Federal Government contribution to a fund managed by a committee which was not a government agency.
He said N10.6bn was approved for the payment of the severance gratuity and allowances of outgone and incoming legislators and legislative aides while N29.9bn was approved for the Armed Forces for the purpose of effectively tackling insurgency under “Operation Zaman Lafiya.”
The chairman also said N1.5bn was for the request by the National Sports Commission for the All African Games Qualifications for RIO 2016 Olympics Games.
However, the principal officers of the Senate who spoke before the final approval of the supplementary budget, lamented that oil marketers had succeeded in blackmailing the National Assembly to approve the bill because they ‘’no longer believe in the subsidy regime.’’
Specifically, he described the subsidy payment as a clear case of economic sabotage and tasked the relevant anti-corruption agencies in the country to be alive to their responsibilities by uncovering the fraud. He said:
“It is clear that this supplementary budget that we have passed, we have looked at both the request of the executive and particularly the sufferings of Nigerians to ensure that we see that this thing is done.
“At the same time, we want to warn the ministries and agencies in charge of this expenditure to make sure that these funds are judiciously used.”
He therefore announced that the three Senate committees on Appropriation; Petroleum Resources (Downstream); and that of Anti-corruption for the purpose of exposing fraud and recommendation of appropriate sanctions for any companies or agencies that might misappropriate the funds. He said:
“This is a huge amount of money and I even believe that the so-called economic sabotage agencies is where their work is. This is truly economic sabotage where billions of naira are being approved but not judiciously used, even our Committee on Anti-corruption must play a role to oversee every single payment. We have made provisions till December. So we must ensure that this money is used properly.”
He asked Nigerians to resist further blackmail by the major oil marketers that constantly create fuel scarcity to get their subsidy claims. He said:
“A lot of us in the past have spoken on this matter and I think we are doing this in the interest of Nigerians, but I think it is high time we said no to this blackmail and end this hardship. We must consider this in 2016.
“I think the Committee on Petroleum, both downstream and upstream as well as Committee on Anti-corruption should do an oversight and made necessary recommendation to the Senate for further legislative action on this matter.”
He said:
“We have been blackmailed into passing this bill at this time; not passing it will mean that the suffering of our people will continue. We are left with no option but to invoke the powers given to us — that is the power to conduct investigation; we must determine the authenticity of these payments. It is important for the committee to look at each payment and ensure that the claims are genuine and authentic.”
Meanwhile, Goje, during an interactive session with journalists after the session, tried unsuccessfully to explain why his committee failed to demand details of subsidy disbursement before approving its payment.
He also said that his committee was not aware of the billions of dollars being claimed by the NNPC as subsidy for the 48 per cent of the total fuel import into the country through the PPMC. Also, the House of Representatives on Tuesday approved N574.5bn as supplementary budget for 2015, just 30 days to the close of the fiscal year.
The House had approved the report of its joint Committee on Appropriations, Finance, Aids/Loans/Debt Management while sitting in Committee on Supplies, pegging the final figure at 574.5bn.
The figure was up by N108.9bn above the N465.6bn originally submitted to the National Assembly by President Buhari on November 18. The additional N108.9bn came from an increment to N413.3bn, which the President proposed for fuel subsidy. This had raised the fuel subsidy vote from N413.3bn to N522.2bn.
The committee’s report indicated that the addition came from the executive arm of government, which had explained that the initial N413.3bn covered subsidy payment up to September 2015 only. It noted that the additional N108.9bn was to cover payment of claims up to December 31.
The Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin, informed the House that the aggregate 2015 budget now stood at N5.08tn.