A revelation that 249
workers of the Petroleum Product Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) spend
N5.7 billion as salaries and allowances yesterday caused outrage in the
National Assembly.
More shocking was the inability of PPPRA Executive Secretary, Reginald Stanley, to account for the 15 kobo which the agency collects on every litre of fuel sold in the country for administrative charges.
To this end, the National Assembly yesterday walked out the management of the agency when it could not justify the spending.
The lawmakers were also stunned at the agency when it could not produce documents to justify Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and the administrative charges.
These revelations before the joint National Assembly Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) were queried by the lawmakers, but the Executive Secretary, Reginald Stanley, could not provide answers to the various questions.
The inability of either the Executive Secretary or any member of the management to give answers to the questions asked forced the lawmakers to walk out the entire team and asked them to come back on another yet to be fixed date.
Giving the breakdown of how the agency spent its 2012 Budget before the Joint Committee, the Executive Secretary said over N2 million each were spent on both the basic salary and regular allowances.
Non-regular allowances gulped over N1 million with NHIS and Pension also had its own share of the total allocations.
The Senate Committee Chairman on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), Magnus Abe, in anger told the management of the agency: "What I want to bring to our attention is the attitude of some of our operators in the sector who always think that except appropriations are drawn directly from the consolidated revenue fund, they are not accountable to parliament for it.
"I want to make it very clear that except the money that you get from your father’s farm or your grandfather’s farm, any money that comes through you, or to you or is expended through any agency as part of the public responsibility is subject to review by the people of Nigeria and the National Assembly that represents the interests of the people of Nigeria.
"So, nobody can receive money on behalf of the Nigerian people, spend it on his own behalf without reference to the National Assembly. I say it in particular to those agencies that are by law allowed to generate and make their own expenditure that all those expenditures not drawn directly on the national budget must also come here and be approved by parliament.
"And except it is approved, nobody should spend any money or disburse any fund that is not pre-approved by parliament. So, if that has been going on in the past, I believe that this meeting today we should put a final stop to it; it shouldn’t happen again. In fact, I want all of us to take that into consideration. That is just what I want to say."
In his own submission, the House Committee Chairman on Petroleum, Peterside Dakuku, said: "We should not assume that budget is a yearly ritual, it is certainly not a yearly ritual you know or you assume it to be.
"We have agreed to take up this exercise to ensure that the interest of the Nigerian people is protected in the course of the budgetary process and our resources are applied in the areas where they are truly needed.
"In this era of reforms, one great tool to reform is the budget that is why we are taking our budgetary process very seriously."
More shocking was the inability of PPPRA Executive Secretary, Reginald Stanley, to account for the 15 kobo which the agency collects on every litre of fuel sold in the country for administrative charges.
To this end, the National Assembly yesterday walked out the management of the agency when it could not justify the spending.
The lawmakers were also stunned at the agency when it could not produce documents to justify Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and the administrative charges.
These revelations before the joint National Assembly Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) were queried by the lawmakers, but the Executive Secretary, Reginald Stanley, could not provide answers to the various questions.
The inability of either the Executive Secretary or any member of the management to give answers to the questions asked forced the lawmakers to walk out the entire team and asked them to come back on another yet to be fixed date.
Giving the breakdown of how the agency spent its 2012 Budget before the Joint Committee, the Executive Secretary said over N2 million each were spent on both the basic salary and regular allowances.
Non-regular allowances gulped over N1 million with NHIS and Pension also had its own share of the total allocations.
The Senate Committee Chairman on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), Magnus Abe, in anger told the management of the agency: "What I want to bring to our attention is the attitude of some of our operators in the sector who always think that except appropriations are drawn directly from the consolidated revenue fund, they are not accountable to parliament for it.
"I want to make it very clear that except the money that you get from your father’s farm or your grandfather’s farm, any money that comes through you, or to you or is expended through any agency as part of the public responsibility is subject to review by the people of Nigeria and the National Assembly that represents the interests of the people of Nigeria.
"So, nobody can receive money on behalf of the Nigerian people, spend it on his own behalf without reference to the National Assembly. I say it in particular to those agencies that are by law allowed to generate and make their own expenditure that all those expenditures not drawn directly on the national budget must also come here and be approved by parliament.
"And except it is approved, nobody should spend any money or disburse any fund that is not pre-approved by parliament. So, if that has been going on in the past, I believe that this meeting today we should put a final stop to it; it shouldn’t happen again. In fact, I want all of us to take that into consideration. That is just what I want to say."
In his own submission, the House Committee Chairman on Petroleum, Peterside Dakuku, said: "We should not assume that budget is a yearly ritual, it is certainly not a yearly ritual you know or you assume it to be.
"We have agreed to take up this exercise to ensure that the interest of the Nigerian people is protected in the course of the budgetary process and our resources are applied in the areas where they are truly needed.
"In this era of reforms, one great tool to reform is the budget that is why we are taking our budgetary process very seriously."
Compass
No comments:
Post a Comment