The Senate has rejected the removal of fuel subsidy as recommended in a report by its Committee on Finance in its probe of the alleged non remittance of 49.8 billion dollars oil revenue.
The Senate Committee on Finance in its report recommended that the subsidy regime be totally abolished.
Although the controversy have cooled with media attention shifting to other issues, the Senate chose to revisit the allegations made by the immediate past CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido, that the NNPC failed to remit 49.8 billion dollars to the federation account.
The Senate had asked its Committee on Finance to investigate the former CBN Governor’s allegations and the Chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Ahmed Markarfi, gave details of the investigation at plenary.
He said that there was never any unremitted 49.8 billion dollars and the committee did not see how the CBN Governor arrived at the figure of 49.8 billion dollars in the first place.
The Committee observed that there had been lack of proper and adequate coordination between the key Government agencies such as CBN, NNPC, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Petroleum, FIRS and the DPR.
Lawmakers then debated the report, but the debate got off on a rocky start as the recommendation by the committee in its report that the subsidy regime be totally abolished was shot down by lawmakers.
Before lawmakers voted against the removal of fuel subsidy, Senate President, David Mark, had called for caution in making the decision to remove fuel subsidy, warning lawmakers not to pitch themselves against the public.
Meanwhile, the committee has also recommended that the NNPC refund and remit 262 million dollars being expenses it could not satisfactorily defend in respect of holding strategic stock reserve, pipeline maintenance and management cost as well as capital expenditure.