Sunday, October 25, 2015

NASS Conducts 52 Probes In 16 Years, Says NILS


Nigeria Senate President, Dr Olusola Saraki

* 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 US$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.

The Nation report continues:
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 ₦19.5 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 ₦2 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 US$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 US$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 US$195 million World Bank loan that took the country’s external debt stock to US$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 ₦300billion 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 ₦847.94 billion even after it had been paid ₦844.94 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 ₦1.7bn 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 ₦2 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 ₦44m 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 ₦2 trillion assets confiscated by the EFCC were being wasted and unlawfully repossessed.

Its ‘Probe into the Aviation Ministry over a ₦9 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 ₦29 billion Police Pension Funds’; Senate’s Investigation into allegation of missing US$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 ₦19.5 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 US$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 ₦9 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 ₦29 billion Police Pension Funds’ *Senate’s Investigation into

allegation of missing US$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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