Reps vows to be thorough in the probe of PMS, others
The House of Representatives Committee on Finance has vowed not to be cowed in its quest to ascertain the actual volume of premium motor spirit (PMS) and other petroleum products in the country.
The Chairman of the Committee, James Faleke handed the warning during the ongoing interactive session on the 2020-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) following the failure of the Executive Secretary of the Pipeline Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) Mr. Abdulkadir Saidu, to appear to before it as scheduled.
Faleke who frowned at the attitude of the PPPRA boss threatened that the Committee would activate relevant sections of the Constitution to compel his appearance before it with necessary documents that would aid the Committee in carrying out its constitutional duties.
According to the lawmaker, “we write you to appear before us today. You were here two days ago. And you presented documents to us which we reviewed.
“But we discovered that your figures contradicted itself and we asked you to take a date to appear, and you took yesterday. Yesterday, suddenly you presented a letter to say you couldn’t come yesterday again.
“Today, we are here, you must appear before us with your documents. Your figures will determine the volume that we consume in this country and the under-recovery.
“We need to know and if you don’t bring them, we will of course take the appropriate action against you,” Hon. Faleke ruled.
The Committee had on Wednesday walked out the Pipeline Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) for failing to give appropriate figures on its daily output of Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS) and other petroleum products in the country.
The Chairman of the Committee and other members, unanimously agreed that there were discrepancies in the records presented regarding revenues due to the government.
The Committee chairman had asked the Agency to reappear on Thursday to give further clarification on the discrepancies noticed in their documents, as the PPPRA Assistant General Manager (AGM), Corporate Services, Kimshi Apollo could not give clear answers to some of the questions asked by the lawmakers.
Trouble started as the Chairman of the Finance Committee pointed that the documents submitted by the Agency showed that the daily output of PMS and other products has been the same from 2018 to 2019.
They also observed that the daily consumption of PMS was put at 48 million litres within the period under review while Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) was put at 10.5 million litres per day.
However, in another document, the Agency claimed that it discharges 59.90 million litres daily in January 2019, 55.04 million in February and 55.66 million litres in March.
The documents further indicated that the supply jumped to 60.27 million litres in January 2020 then 60.56 million litres in February and down to 56.07 million litres in March 2020.
The supply further jumped to 61.92 litres per day in January 2021 and down to 58.09 million litres in January and moved up to 66.64 million litres in March 2021.
Chairman of the Committee, Faleke also noted that the Agency provided conflicting records on the daily discharge and consumption of petroleum products in the country.
