THE House of Representatives ad-hoc committee’s report on the fuel subsidy regime may soon claim its first casualties.                

Reason: Plans are under way by the Federal Government to send on compulsory retirement several top executives of some agencies in the oil sector over their indictment in the report.

The Guardian learnt that officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the Petroleum Product Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) could be affected in the planned shake-up.

Sources at the Ministry of Pe- troleum Resources confirmed this to The Guardian yesterday, stressing that Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Dieziani Alison-Madueke, ordered the overhaul of management personnel in the agencies as a direct fall-out of the subsidy report.

In the meantime, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) audit reports of 2004, 2005 and 2008 chronicled the systemic rot in the oil sector but most of the recommendations in the reports on how to halt the monumental corruption in the sector are still gathering dust on the shelves.

In a statement in Abuja yesterday, its Director of Communication, Ogbonnaya Oji, said the findings of the ad-hoc Farouk Lawan-led panel did not come to NEITI as a surprise as most of the preliminary observations in the House committee’s reports have been captured in various audit reports of the agency.

The Guardian learnt that a former executive secretary of the PPPRA, whose name was not disclosed, had been picked to emerge as the next chairman of the PPPRA Governing Board.

There had been pressure from Labour unions to constitute a new Governing Board for the PPPRA.

The PPPRA Board comprises 26 institutions and stakeholders, while the President appoints the body’s chairman. Other members are representatives of the 26 institutions comprising Labour, government, Organised Private Sector (OPS), marketers and regulators. The board existence is not tenured but determined at the prerogative of the President.             .

Sources said the Presidency was worried over the image of the sector in the light of the recent House report that indicted at least three of the former executive secretaries and several management and senior members of staff of the agency.

The minister, it was learnt, had given approval for the re-deployment of three Assistant General Managers (AGMs) and the immediate retirement of GM (Operations) in the PPPRA.

It was also gathered that at least seven management staff of the PPPRA would be asked to voluntarily retire, as some of them had spent the maximum eight years in positions equivalent to that of directors.

In November 2011, the ministry ordered the re-deployment of top management staff of the agencies and vowed to continue the process.

There were indications that the Group Managing Director (GMD), NNPC who was due for retirement since December 2011, would be allowed to retire in June 2012.

In another move by the minister who is also struggling to keep her job, the current Executive Secretary, PPPRA, Mr. Reginald Stanley, could be named the next GMD of the NNPC to take over from Mr. Austen Oniwon.

Sources said lobby team might have been raised by the minister to help push Stanley’s candidacy. A source in the NNPC said if that worked out, the current Executive Secretary, PPPRA, might face stiff opposition from the national body of the union who believed he is anti-union.

According to the sources, the AGMs pencilled for re-deployment are Saka Salman (Admin), A.O. Soloye (HR), V.Z. Shidok (Operations), S.O. Agbaje (Operations) and GM (Operations), Mr. Wole Adamolekun.

Oji explained: “For NEITI, the preliminary findings of the ad-hoc committee was not surprising given the prevailing poor institutional linkages, infrastructural weakness, governance and process lapses as well as some kind of impunity which appear to frustrate all efforts at enthroning openness, transparency and good business ethics in the oil and gas industry over the years.

“As Nigerians are aware, NEITI has conducted three different cycles of independent audits in the oil and gas industry (2004, 2005 and 2006/2008 respectively). Each of the cycle of industry audits issued a comprehensive report with findings and recommendations, which clearly identified and highlighted the problems within the sector, proposed solutions and ways to implement them. But implementation of these remedial issues in the NEITI audit reports over these years had remained one of the major challenges in spite of the efforts being made by NEITI under the inter-ministerial task team set up by the Federal Government for this purpose.

“From the reports of the Farouk Lawan-led House ad-hoc committee so far, it is not quite shocking for NEITI over the level of corruption and abuses in the oil and gas sector, even given the amount of funds being mentioned in the report that could not be accounted for. NEITI reports had made similar shocking revelations in the areas of under-payments and receipts, poor computation of financial flows, physical crude lifting and general concerns on management of the processes. But the reports got very little or no attention.”

NEITI aligned itself with the pronouncement by President Goodluck Jonathan through his Special Adviser on National Assembly Affairs, Senator Joy Emordi and the position of the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that all those found culpable in the fuel subsidy scandal will be publicly prosecuted.

It said it was joining the media, civil society and all Nigerians to call for objective, open, free, fair, thorough and early conclusion of investigations and the necessary courage required to ensure full implementation of the findings and recommendations of the committees’ reports.

-Guardian

Posted by admin on May 7 2012. Filed under Latest Politics, Oil Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry