Magnus Abe
Members of Nigeria’s Federal Legislature were on Wednesday stunned when they discovered that the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) spent a whopping N5.2 billion on salaries and allowances of less than 250 staff of the agency.
They similarly learnt that the agency could not account for the 15 kobo per litre of petrol remitted to it.
Chairman of the Joint Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) Senator Magnus Abe, halted proceedings on the budget defence session when the PPPRA was unable to produce documents to substantiate its over N5 billion expenditure profile. The agency also could not tender documents to justify the administrative charge and its Internal Generated Revenue (IGR).
A breakdown of the wage profile of the monitoring body shows that: Basic salary – N2,167,702,293; regular allowances – N2,130,836,029; non-regular allowances – N1,153,044,623; NHIS – N113,874723, pension – N160,462,867. The total is N5,725,920,535.
An obviously furious Abe stated that the National Assembly would henceforth come down hard on any ministry, department and agency (MDA) that engages in extra-budgetary spending.
Speaking further, the Rivers South Senatorial district representative said: “What I want to bring to our attention is the attitude of some of our operators in the sector, who always think that except appropriations are drawn directly from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, they are not accountable to parliament for it.”
“I want to make it very, very, clear that except the money that you get from your father’s farm or your grandfather’s farm is spent, any amount that comes through you, or to you is expended through any agency as part of the public responsibility is subject to review by the people of Nigeria and the National Assembly that represents the interest of the people of Nigeria.”
“So, nobody can receive money on behalf of the Nigerian people, spend it on his own behalf without reference to the National Assembly. I say it in particular reference to those agencies that are by law allowed to generate and make their own expenditure, noting that those expenditures that are not drawn directly on the national budget must also come here and be approved by the parliament and except it is approved, nobody should spend any money or disburse any fund that is not pre-approved by parliament.”
“if that had been going on in the past, I believe that this meeting today, we should put a final stop to it; it shouldn’t happen again. I want all of us to take that into consideration,” Abe said.
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