Every day we are embarrassed by the now regular and traditional appearances of managers of the nation’s oil earning to explain how one huge sum of money or the other disappeared or did not appear properly. Is it not ridiculous that the National Assembly prefers the everyday invitation of the managers of our oil earnings rather than institutionalizing a new mindset in the sector?
Every day we are embarrassed by the now regular and traditional appearances of managers of the nation’s oil earning to explain how one huge sum of money or the other disappeared or did not appear properly. Is it not ridiculous that the National Assembly prefers the everyday invitation of the managers of our oil earnings rather than institutionalizing a new mindset in the sector?
First do we all agree that the issue of the delayed passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) into law is a matter of urgent national importance? If yes, then why is it that the National Assembly does not see any need for expediency in allowing the bill go through? If the lawmakers at the National Assembly are genuinely interested in promoting accountability and transparency in the oil and gas industry, why are they not eager to pass this all-important bill?
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Who does not know that the continued delay in the passage of the PIB was responsible for the large scale abuses and illegalities being witnessed in the nation’s oil sector? Yet those who should put pressure on the National Assembly over the fate of this all important bill could best be said to have expressed mere casual interest or at worst curious indifference. This bill already passed second reading at the Senate and was committed to the joint committees on Petroleum (Upstream and Downstream), Gas, Judiciary, Human rights and Legal matters, which was asked to conduct a public hearing since March 7, 2013, so what happened?
Most of the terrible things happening in the sector could be traced to the operational settings in the NNPC, its SBUs and the joint venture partners. It’s impossible for us to properly regulate the oil industry for the benefit of the country as clamoured without putting in place effective guidelines that are in sync with our present realities. It has been said severally that the coming into effect of the PIB which is a comparatively tight legal framework for the sector would plug most of the channels of the much-trumpeted leaks in the nation’s oil and gas sector.
When we needed some corrections in our political economy particularly the blurred transactions in the government’s fuel subsidy payments, several groups and independent voices rose in unison to demand a redress of the abnormality. The anti-subsidy protests including the Lagos sit-to-rule and the Abuja march to the National Assembly by prominent Nigerians under the Save Nigeria umbrella did produce tangible results. At least the National Assembly was forced to embark on an inquest into the wuru -wuru transactions that characterized the subsidy payments.
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So why has the opposition politicians and the plethora of “voices of patriotic reasoning” gone dumb in the face of the glaring sabotage of a legislative framework that can save us the heartache of hearing everyday how few people cart away with billions or trillions of naira unscathed?
If the opposition with all its muscles and mouth; Save Nigeria or kill Nigeria; and all the paper-tiger civil society groups should today confront the National Assembly on the speedy passage the PIB or hand them over a threat of mass action, definitely, something would be done to get the bill scale through no matter how. But this has not been done for reasons well known and canvassed by a select few.
Playing selective opposition represents self-deceit. It is really pathetic that debates on only two issues in the document have been covertly manipulated to grossly progress in error. It was a show of shame for us to have been torn along sectional lines on trivialities ignoring the weighty issues of the document that deserve very serious attention from all of us. Without mincing words, the unnecessary controversy the PIB has generated so far is a clear indication that national interests would be sacrificed for selfish and sectional desires. And this will not do us any good as a nation.
Most Nigerians are unaware that only two issues have succeeded in almost killing the spirit and intent of this all important bill. Lawmakers from a section of the country (north) have vowed not to allow the bill pass into law because the current version excluded the Petroleum Equalization Management Fund (PEF). The same group had also vowed not to accept the clause on the Petroleum Host Communities Fund which ceded 10 per cent stake in the profits of oil and gas companies to host communities. Just these two issues and members of the National Assembly cannot get themselves to agree on a workable compromise. Shame!
The argument of lawmakers the north was that if the bill passes as it is now without provision for the Petroleum Equalization Fund, prices of petroleum products in the northern part of Nigeria will be far higher than what will be paid by users of fuel in the south because of transportation. The question is: even now do we have uniform prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene across the country? Few kilometers from Port Harcourt refinery, petrol sells for between N110 –N120 per litre even as near as Oyigbo from the refinery. The prices in the riverine areas of the entire south-south have always been far higher than what other Nigerians pay even when the nation’s refineries where carrying the domestic fuel needs. The entire south-east, for peculiar reasons, has been operating a fully deregulated market since I grew up. And the story is just the same way into the extreme northern parts of the country. So what are our lawmakers from the north saying if not that they have been manipulated to canvass the interest of the beneficiaries of the fraud in the petroleum equalization racket?
Let’s even look at it: the PEF, which is currently a parastatal under the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, has two main objectives: to apply the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as they affect the uniform pricing system, in ensuring that each marketing company complies with the laws regarding the management of the transportation equalisation process, and to even out the transportation differentials in product marketing in the country.
This fund has been an avenue to equalise the differential gap that marketers incur as a result of the transportation of petroleum products from the coastal part of the country where almost all the import receptor tank farms are situated to the hinterlands.
However, this need to be shouted loud and clear that: almost all the transactions in the petroleum equalisation arrangement are blurred. The fund created vast opportunities for rent-seeking and has become a source of serious fraud and corruption. Many marketers have been presenting fake claims to the agency for reimbursements thus resulting in loss of billions of naira to dubious claims. Of course they do this in collusion with PEF and NNPC officials. And if the agency refuses to pay (which they are yet to do because they also benefit from the racket), the marketers would threaten to stop haulage of products to the north and no decent government would want such situation. You see, it is now a blackmail situation! And these are the same people shouting of massive corruption in the oil sector particularly the subsidy arrangement!
How can we explain as a people that the defense of a terrible arena of fraud and corruption by certain people is what has held down the entire legal framework that could have sanitized the nation’s oil sector! Nigeria, I hail thee!
IFEANYI IZEZE is an Abuja-based Consultant and be reached on: [email protected]; 234-8033043009)
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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