The Federal Government’s subsidy on fuel is expected to rise by N521 billion this year as the Senate has directed government agencies to capture payments for the last quarter of this year in the 2015 supplementary budget proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Senate urged agencies in the petroleum sector to articulate all the outstanding subsidy arrears and that of the months of October, November and December 2015 and submit to them for approval, to forestall future occurrence of fuel scarcity due to fuel subsidy debts. With the directive, the Senate is to consider N521 billion, instead of the N413 billion captured in the 2015 supplementary budget before it, for approval as fuel subsidy.
The new figure includes an additional N108 billion meant for fuel subsidy in the last quarter of 2015, which was not captured in the N465.5 billion supplementary budget submitted to the Senate by Buhari penultimate week, in which the president is seeking approval for N413 billion to pay fuel subsidy.
The N413 billion was meant to cover between January and September and with the proposed additional N108 billion, the supplementary budget before the National Assembly will stand at N573 billion. The Senate Committee on Appropriations made the discovery yesterday of the non-provision for funds to cover fuel subsidy for the last quarter of the year during the defence of the supplementary budget by government agencies.
The members of the committee frowned on the failure of the agencies in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to capture the 2015 last quarter subsidy fund in the supplementary proposal. They said leaving the subsidy for the period out of the budget would plunge the nation into another round of fuel scarcity later in the year.
The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Danjuma Goje, expressed the disappointment of the committee over what he considered government’s inadvertent laying of foundation for another round of fuel scarcity by failing to budget for subsidy for the last quarter of the year. He said:
“We are concerned because we don’t want to see this kind of situation in the next four years again. We want to see that fuel scarcity is eliminated and fuel is available to all. “But we are disappointed to hear that this subsidy is only from January to September. With Christmas coming, it will be unfortunate that after paying this money, we will come back and face this problem again.”
We must find a way to approve it as we enter into this period of Christmas to New Year,” Aliero said. Senator Jibrin Barau also supported this view, stressing that it was unacceptable that fuel scarcity should be a recurring incident in this era of change. However, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Jamilla Shuara, said the budget had been prepared before she and the Minister of State for the ministry, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, assumed office.
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, assured the committee that a review of the budget would be done and the subsidy would be captured and re-submitted to the Senate by 3pm yesterday. Earlier, Shuara had told the senators that the N413 billion budget for subsidy consisted of outstanding N120.5 billion from 2014 in addition to another N294.4 billion for the period of January to September 2015.
Similarly, the committee uncovered payment of un-appropriated subsidy by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Senator Bassey Akpan (Akwa Ibom) said the National Assembly had intelligence report that the total subsidy, includ-ing that of the NNPC, was N950 billion while the corporation had been pretending that the entire subsidy was N413 billion. He accused the corporation of paying its own subsidy without appropriation.
NNPC was, however, not represented at the event as Shuara said the notice of the budget defence only got to her and Kachikwu yesterday morning, adding that by then, Kachikwu was in Lagos to meet major oil marketers to resume importation of fuel since the process of their payment had begun.
On his part, the Director General, Budget Office, Aliyu Gusau, said the supplementary budget became imperative in view of discovery that the amount earlier budgeted for subsidy by the outgone administration of former President Goodluck Jobathan was insufficient. Minister of Defence, Dan Ali, during the budget defence, said N29.958 billion had been captured in the supplementary budget for military operations in the North-East. Meanwhile, the scheduled meeting between Kachikwu and marketers was suspended yesterday following the bickering between major marketers and independent marketers.
New Telegraph gathered that the minister suspended the meeting when he learnt that the independent marketers were not invited for the meeting. It was learnt that the marketers, under the auspices of Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), who got the invitation from their Executive Secretary, Mr. Thomas Olawore, arrived at the unannounced venue of the meeting in Apapa and were later told that the minister was not ready to meet them. “Dr. Kachikwu felt that meeting with majors with exclusion of independent ones will worsen his relationship with all marketers and affect his effort to get all of them on the same page to end this lingering scarcity.
“This is the reason he had to suspend the meeting. But he is still in Lagos to go round some depots in Apapa on Tuesday. He will do this to get first -information on the loading of fuel at depots tomorrow (Tuesday). “The minister is still in Lagos to pacify warring parties, but majorly to monitor loading of the products at depots in Apapa and to ensure that due sanction is meted out on any marketer who is found to be hoarding the product,” a source said. Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Ohi Alegbe, could not be reached for comment on the meeting.
Olawore confirmed to New Telegraph that the meeting has been suspended. “Yes, the meeting did not hold as scheduled today,” he said declining further questions on why the meeting was suspended. Asked when next the meeting will hold, he said: “We did not tell you that this meeting will hold in the first time, we are just surprised to read it in your paper today. So, we will still not tell you when the next meeting will hold. I am sure you will know how to get that information.”
