Bent on getting to the bottom of billions of petrol Subsidy payments to marketers in the last nine years, the House of Representatives’ Ad Hoc Committee investigating the issue has summoned the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Zainab Ahmed.
Ahmed is to appear before the committee with all the documents demanded by the lawmakers relating to subsidy claims and payments in the period under review.
The committee said the minister must appear with documents detailing “the total amount released from the Consolidated Revenue Account as subsidy payments from January 2013 to date; the total amount released from other accounts other than the Consolidated Revenue Account to subsidy payments from January 2013 to date; breakdown of beneficiaries; companies that enjoyed releases from the Consolidated Revenue Account and other revenue accounts as subsidy payments.
“Identify each beneficiary with the amount sent to them, month by month, covering the period from January 2013 to date; all correspondences between the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Nigeria regarding subsidy payments from January 2013 to date; evidence of lodgement of forex into Consolidated Revenue Account by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation now (Nigerian National Petroleum Company) Limited as revenue from January 2013 to date.”
Meanwhile, analysts insist that the current probe is not likely to achieve much considering what has happened to similar probes in the past.