Presidential candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Kingsley Moghalu, said President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration is not transparent, and deceitful.
“The illegal payment of fuel subsidy shows the President Buhari administration is not transparent. His government is also deceitful and acting contrary to its claims of fighting corruption,” Moghalu’s spokesman Jide Akintunde said in a statement on Wednesday.
“According to various media reports, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Maikanti Baru, last week, told the Senate ad hoc committee investigating alleged $3.5 billion account kept by NNPC for petrol subsidy that only $1.05 billion has been taken from the NLNG dividends fund to defray the cost of ‘under-recovery’ in the importation of fuel,” he added.
The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was accused of taking $1.05 billion from the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) dividends.
The corporation allegedly used the said money to augment the losses being incurred on N145 per litre current pump price of petrol.
As the report filtered, the Nigeria senate set up an ad hoc committee to probe the alleged diversion.
However, the presidential hopeful accused the federal government of breaking the law by not remitting the dividends into the federation’s consolidated revenue account.
He said: “By law, dividends from the nation’s 49% equity stake in NLNG should be paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation where the money would be shared by the three tiers of government.”
“The federal government is also required by law to secure budgetary approval from the National Assembly to fund its fiscal commitments, including petrol subsidy,” he added.
Moghalu further stated that “Buhari, through the NNPC, has been breaking the law by secretly diverting NLNG dividends to pay for petrol subsidy that was not budgeted for.”
“The continuation of petrol subsidy secretly after 67% increase in the pump price of petrol by Buhari shows incompetence in economic management and political will to reform the petroleum industry.”
The former deputy governor of central bank of Nigeria said the sums diverted to the “fuel subsidy scam” could accomplish much in education, human capital development and police reform.
The president candidate, while stating his plans to reform the oil sector if elected in 2019, promised to abolish fuel subsidy.
