* Old problems persist
-investigation
The two chambers of the National
Assembly have conducted no fewer than 52 probes between them in the last 16
years, according to a report compiled by the National Institute for Legislative
Studies (NILS).
The probes covered government
agencies/parastatals, alleged corruption and diverse issues.
But investigation by The Nation
shows that many of the issues so probed remain largely unresolved, and in some
cases have worsened over the years.
Listed as some of the problems
probed by the two chambers are: alleged corruption in the oil sector, the
closure of the Port Harcourt International Airport, and the expenditure of $16
billion on the power sector.
Crude oil theft continues,
electricity supply is yet to stabilize while the Port Harcourt Airport was
recently described as the worst in the world.
On March 12, 2008, the Senate
Committee on FCT and that of Housing and Environment were mandated to
conduct public hearing on the activities
of the Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory from 1999 to 2007.
They turned in a report deemed to
be technically deficient but the Senate
later adopted some of its recommendations before realizing that it had no legal
authority to bar Mallam Nasir el-Rufai from politics while those who lost
houses to demolition or lost their land to revocations received no form of
compensation.
The Senate Committee on
Aviation’s 2008 probe of the N19.5 billion Safe Tower Project indicted several
top government officials for manipulating contract awards but no funds were
recovered.
Another 2008 Senate Probe on Food
Crisis in Nigeria discovered that several contractors who were paid huge sums
did not even know the project sites.
“One of the contractors told the
panel that the heavy equipment on his site were stolen by thieves; the
committee uncovered cases of stark fraud and breach of contract. The committee
also heard how stored grains meant for the markets in time of shortages were
distributed to prominent people including emirs and chiefs in the country,” the
52-page report stated.
Another 2008 probe in the House
of Representatives concluded that a former GMD of NNPC wasted over N2 billion
on hotel accommodations in less than four years.
In the same year, another probe
and public hearing on “Operations of the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) and its subsidiaries from 1999 to 2007” found a litany of
corruption practices.
“Incidences of corruption
uncovered include misappropriation of fund budgeted for refineries’ Turn-Around
Maintenance; incessant hike in the price of petroleum products; deliberate and
unaccounted increase in the daily quota of petroleum production against OPEC
allocation; fraudulent allocation of oil blocks; lack of transparency and imprudence
in NNPC bills; crude oil theft and smuggling’ across Nigeria’s porous borders;
deliberate delay in discharging of petroleum products by ships at the seaports,
and; dubious operations of International Oil Companies (IOCs).
“It was discovered that one of
three unregistered companies (Carlson Oil Company Inc) netted about $3.87
billion as profit from lifting 40% of Nigerian crude in ten years, the House of
Representatives and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)
confirmed, that none of the three companies has paid a kobo in tax to the
Nigerian Government since 1999,” it stated.
The 2009 Ndudi Elumelu-led House
of Representatives probe of the $16 billion spent on the power sector had
concluded that “several contracts were found to have been awarded to people who
did not know what to do in the first place while millions of dollars were paid
up front. In many cases, the contractors didn’t even know the construction
sites.”
The panel report soon sparked
controversy across the land and another
panel was set up to probe the report.
Similarly, the House of Reps
panel that probed the Global Economic Meltdown and Depreciation of the
Naira in 2009 concluded that “the nation’s economic managers had
been economical with the truth,” and
that the global turmoil was affecting Nigeria’s economy in the areas of capital
flight, exchange rate of the naira, upward pressure on inflation and dwindling
foreign reserves.
There was also the House probe of
‘Untold hardship of Nigerians in various deportation camps in Libya.’ It asked
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to “urgently facilitate the deportation of
affected Nigerians in Libya while demanding more humane treatment of Nigerians
by the Libyan authorities.”
Many Nigerians remained in Libya
only for their conditions to worsen following the chaos that gripped that
country after the murder of President Muammar Ghadaffi in 2011.
Some of the House of
Representatives 2009 probes which inexplicably ended without a single page of
report include those on the ‘Sudden and mysterious disappearance of
Mr. Jude Onunze from the custody of Nigeria Police Force at Kuje Station,
Abuja’; ‘Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Nationwide strike
vis-à-vis its Implication on the Society’; ‘Indiscriminate Displacement of
Skilled Nigerians by Foreign Companies Based in Nigeria’, and; a probe of
‘Security Situation in Anambra State’.
Its 2009 probe of ‘Nigeria’s
Return to Foreign Debts Burden’ following a $195 million World Bank loan that
took the country’s external debt stock to $3.7billion condemned the process as
“dubious, shady and corrupt.”
A probe of ‘Female National Youth
Service Corps member (NYSC) raped to death’ prompted the House to demand the
conferment of post-humous national honours on Miss Grace Adie Ushang, who lost
her life while serving in Borno State but this never happened and the police
later revealed that her killers were apprehended but released because the state
has no law for conviction on such cases.
At the Senate, the 2009 Transport
Sector Probe headed by Senator Heineken Lokpobiri found that the Minister of
Works had a budget of N300billion in four years but could not fix Nigerian
roads properly.
Senators threw the report of the
Sylvester Anyanwu-led ‘Probe of Incessant Drop Calls by GSM Providers’ back at
the panel which continued to invite GSM providers until it was eventually
dissolved.
A 2011 Senate probe on
‘Investigation of the Privatization and Commercialization Activities of the
Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) from 1999 to Date’ made 45 recommendations
that highlighted shady deals but no one was sanctioned.
The Senate’s 2011 ‘Probe of Oil
Subsidy Expenditure’ named several beneficiaries of an opaque system whereby
the NNPC paid itself N847.94 billion even after it had been paid N844.94
billion by the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency.
The Senate’s ‘Malabu Oil Field
Transaction Probe’ of 2012 concluded its activities without issuing a single
page report.
In 2012, the House of
Representatives’ Committee on Environment which investigated the Bonga Oil Spill’ found several cases of
flagrant abuse of the extant environmental laws, but was unable to get any
relief materials for those affected and ended up without making any report of
its activities available.
In 2012, the ‘Probe of Petroleum
Product Fuel Subsidy Administration’ led
by the House of
Representatives’ member Farouk Lawan
recommended that 72 firms should refund N1.7bn within three months and that the
EFCC should investigate and prosecute culprits.
Before Lawan himself was cited in
an alleged bribe scandal, his Committee recommended a mere reprimand for the
former PDP National Chairman, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, who was the chairman of the PPPRA
from 2009 to 2011, and other members of the board during the period, for
allegedly opening “the floodgate of the (subsidy) bazaar”.
The House Finance Committee’s
‘Probe of remittances by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA)’ uncovered
a N2 trillion fraud in the executive after an investigation into the revenue
generation and remittance of 60 ministries, departments and agencies of
government which showed that top heads
of ministries, departments and agencies of government generate revenue from
their agency’s activities running into trillions of naira but under-declared
such revenue while diverting the remaining for
other use.
The House of Representatives’
2012 ‘Capital Market/Security and Exchange Commission (SEC)’ probe was
dismissed after its chairman, Herman Hembe, was accused of demanding N44m bribe
and a new panel recommended the removal of Ms. Arunma Oteh who remained at her
post long afterwards.
In 2013, the House’s ‘Public
Investigative Hearing to Unravel the Status of All Assets Seized and Recovered
by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Since Inception’ looked
into allegations that some N2 trillion assets confiscated by the EFCC were
being wasted and unlawfully repossessed.
Its ‘Probe into the Aviation
Ministry over a N9 billion contract (including SURE-P and the Ministry of
Works)’ found out much about the award of contracts running into billions of naira
that were paid for without execution.
Also, its ‘Probe of the Minister
of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Bala Mohammed over alleged land swap
deals’ found that the Federal Government had not fulfilled its promise of
compensating 854 indigenous communities of the FCT 37 years after their land
was taken.
No sanction was visited on anyone
and the indigenous communities’ situation remains the same.
Other 2014 probe activities
include the House’s ‘Probe of N29 billion Police Pension Funds’; Senate’s
Investigation into allegation of missing $49.8 billion in the account of
Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) by former Governor of Central
Bank (CBN), Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi; the House’ inconclusive ‘Investigation
of financial recklessness levelled against the Minister of Petroleum Resources,
Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke’; probe of
‘NIS Recruitment Tragedy’, and; the ‘Investigative Public Hearing on
Supply, Distribution, Expenditure and Subsidy on Kerosene’.
The lack of sanctions or deterrence
has made the numerous probes to look like mere formalities as the problems they
sought to end have remained.
NILS which copied the bulky
report came into being in March 2011 when President Goodluck Jonathan signed
the NILS ACT 2011 into law following the passage of the same by the Senate and
the House of Representatives.
It made no recommendations on its
study of the probes at the NASS
PROBES CONDUCTED BY THE NATIONAL
ASSEMBLY SINCE 1999
2008
* On March 12, Senate probe of
the Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory from 1999 to
2007
* The Senate Committee on
Aviation probe of the N19.5 billion Safe Tower Project
* Senate Probe on Food Crisis in
Nigeria
* House of Representatives probe
of a former GMD of NNPC over alleged wastage of over
N2 billion on hotel
accommodations in less than four years.
* Anther probe and public hearing
on Operations of the NNPC and its subsidiaries from
1999 to 2007
2009
* Ndudi Elumelu-led House of
Representatives probe of the $16 billion spent on the power
sector
* The House of Reps panel probed
the Global Economic Meltdown and Depreciation of the
Naira
* The House again probed of
‘Untold hardship of Nigerians in various deportation camps
in Libya.’
* Probe of the ‘Sudden and
mysterious disappearance of Mr. Jude Onunze from the custody
of Nigeria Police Force at Kuje
Station, Abuja’
* Probe of the ‘Academic Staff
Union of Universities (ASUU) Nationwide strike vis-à-vis its
Implication on the Society’;
* ‘Indiscriminate Displacement of
Skilled Nigerians by Foreign Companies Based in Nigeria’
* Probe of ‘Security Situation in
Anambra State’
* Probe of ‘Nigeria’s Return to
Foreign Debts Burden’
* A probe of ‘Female National
Youth Service Corps member (NYSC) raped to death’
(in Borno State)
* Transport Sector Probe headed
by Senator Heineken Lokpobiri
* ‘Probe of Incessant Drop Calls
by GSM Providers’
2011
* Probe on ‘Investigation of the
Privatization and Commercialization Activities of the
Bureau of Public Enterprises
(BPE) from 1999 to Date’
* The Senate’s ‘Probe of Oil
Subsidy Expenditure’
2012
* Senate’s ‘Malabu Oil Field
Transaction Probe’
* House of Representatives’
Committee on Environment investigated the Bonga Oil Spill’
* House of Reps ‘Probe of
Petroleum Product Fuel Subsidy Administration’ led
by Farouk Lawan
* The House Finance Committee’s
‘Probe of remittances by Ministries, Departments
and Agencies (MDA)’
* The House of Representatives
‘Capital Market/Security and Exchange Commission (SEC)’
probe
2013
* The House’s ‘Public
Investigative Hearing to Unravel the Status of All Assets Seized and
Recovered by the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Since Inception’
* ‘Probe into the Aviation
Ministry over a N9 billion contract (including SURE-P and
the Ministry of Works)’
* ‘Probe of the Minister of
Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Bala Mohammed
over alleged land swap deals’
2014
* The House ‘Probe of N29 billion
Police Pension Funds’ *Senate’s Investigation into
allegation of missing $49.8
billion in the account of Nigeria National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC)
* The House ‘Investigation of
financial recklessness levelled against the Minister
of Petroleum Resources, Mrs.
Diezani Alison-Madueke’
*
Probe of ‘NIS Recruitment Tragedy’
* The ‘Investigative Public
Hearing on Supply, Distribution, Expenditure and Subsidy
on Kerosene’.
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