Reps: NNPC, marketers want to undermine subsidy report

The House of Representatives yesterday fired back at the NNPC and oil marketers who have been issuing denials and counter accusations against lawmakers over the petrol subsidy inquiry report.NNPC and some marketers, along with the PPPRA and some government officials, were indicted in the report for a fraud of more than N1 trillion in 2009-2011.The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on Sunday denied the fraud allegations, accusing the lawmakers of merely trying to rubbish the image of the corporation. Eighteen indicted marketers were also reported to be planning a court action against the House.Spokesman for the House, Mr. Zakari Mohammed, in a statement in Abuja yesterday, said the corporation and the marketers were only trying to undermine the work of the lawmakers.He said following the presentation of the report, individuals, marketers and corporations not favoured 'have sought to impugn its authenticity coming under guises, including but not limited to buck-passing and alleged non-invitation to the investigative hearing, several of them are desperately seeking to undermine the outcome of the report consideration billed for tomorrow (today).'The subsidy probe report, presented last week and due for debate today, made startling revelations of large-scale fraud and indicted certain top government officials. Some of the officials and marketers said they were not invited to the hearings to defend themselves.'Despite repeated appeals by the committee to all those who had anything to do with the country's subsidy regime between 2009-2012 to come forward and make presentations before it, some of these organisations conveniently chose to stay away'obviously because they have something to hide'only turn around now to claim non-invitation,' Mohammed said yesterday.He said the reported recourse to legal action by some of the affected marketers 'is an orchestrated plot to scuttle the findings of the committee.'He added: 'For the NNPC, claims that the ad hoc committee report may have been altered to embarrass it is only in tandem with the current reckoning of its spokesman as a 'Chief Denial Officer'. The corporation must have been in possession of another version of the report for it to assert that the one officially laid before the House on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 was altered.'Mohammed called on all Nigerians to be vigilant and wary of 'those who would rather prefer that the country continue to be run in the usual corruption-laden way which put unmerited resources in individual pockets at the expense of the people.
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