Alleged Bribery Must Not Stop Implementation of Report On Fuel Subsidy Management, ACN, NLC Warn Govt.

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has warned that the allegation of bribery involving the chair of the House of Representatives ad hoc committee on fuel subsidy management, Hon. Farouk Lawan, must not be allowed to scuttle the implementation of the committee's report.

  In a statement issued in Lagos on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party expressed deep concern at the timing of the allegation to coincide with the period that Nigerians expect the government to be dealing with the issues raised in the report.   In a similar statement, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) said that Nigerians should not be overburdened with an issue that should strictly be that of appropriate security agencies, particularly the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.   “Whether or not the Chairman or the entire members of the Adhoc committee solicited for and received gratifications to compromise the outcome of the committee’s investigations though quite disturbing, the final report of the committee still contains names and details enough for thorough and transparent investigation,” the Congress said in a statement signed by its Acting President, Kiri Mohammed.  “The report, which has been submitted to the executive arm, must be subjected to proper investigation and prosecution of all those indicted.”   The ACN pointed out that public reaction to the report clearly indicated that the committee had carried out a thorough job in exposing the massive mismanagement and the sleaze involved in the fuel subsidy issue. ''Therefore, the allegation of bribery making the rounds should not be used as a reason not to allow all those indicted by the report to have their day in court,'' ACN said.   The party said while the bribery allegation must be thoroughly investigated and anyone found culpable dealt with according to the laws of the land, any attempt to cast aspersion on the report, to say it has been tainted by the bribery allegation, should be resisted by the House of Representatives.   ''We are concerned that this case is eerily similar to what happened after the House's probe into the $16 billion reportedly spent in the power sector during the Obasanjo regime. Instead of implementing the report of the committee, the man who presided over the probe was slammed with corruption charges. Till today, that report was never implemented and Nigeria remains in darkness,'' it said.   The NLC said the House of Representatives’ report confirmed its long-held position that a subsidy did not exist in the petroleum sector, and that it had always been a conduit for a few cronies of successive governments with interest in the petroleum sector to siphon public funds for their private businesses.   “For us, we believe criminal matters as serious as bribery should be what the police or EFCC should take very serious interest in and not politicize the issue through unnecessary diversionary tactics,” it said.  “We therefore urge the EFCC to implement the report of the committee, which President Jonathan was reported to have forwarded to the agency NOW.”

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