By KUNLE KALEJAYE
FORMER Minister of Petroleum Resources, Professor Tam David West has described  of petroleum subsidy as worse than the convicted former governor of Delta State, James Ibori.

Ibori, who pleaded guilty to several charges of money laundering before the Southwark Crown Court, got a 13-year jail term last week.

The former minister told Vanguard in a telephone chat that those who abused the petrol subsidy fund stole from every Nigerian adding that the Federal government has been paying for corruption not subsidy.

“I have said it before that there is no payment of petroleum subsidy and I still maintain my position. This is a real vindication for what I have been fighting for over 16 years.

“I personally sent a congratulatory message to the Chairman of House of Representative ad-hoc committee on the utilization of subsidy, Hon. Farouk Lawan for his commitment and standing pressure from external forces to dilute the report” he said.

He also calls for the immediate resignation of the Minister of Finance and Coordinator of the Economic team, Dr. Ngozi Okonji Iweala and a total overhaul of the NNPC.

“The minister of finance must resign for supporting the idea of subsidy and putting the interest of the World Bank ahead of Nigeria and NNPC must be totally overhauled.

“If the report of the House is not implemented, President Jonathan must also resign because we now have a situation whereby billions of the nation’s wealth is in the hands of a few Nigerians which is an indication of bad policy implementation that affects the common man.

However, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and other oil marketers indicted by the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on the Monitoring of the Subsidy Regime as fraudulently benefiting from subsidy payment on imported petroleum products have opted to remain silent.

The committee report recommended that the sum of N1, 067,040,456,171.31 be refunded to the Federation Account by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, marketers, companies that refused to appear before the committee as well as the Petroleum Product Pricing and Regulatory Agency.

Out of this amount, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation which came under heavy criticism from the Committee is to refund N310, 414,963,613.00 for subsidy it collected on Kerosene after the subsidy on the product had been outlawed in the country; N285, 098,000,000 for subsidy it collected above the PPPRA recommended amount and N108, 648,000,000 for self-discount it granted itself while marketing companies are to refund a N8, 664,352,554.00.

Companies that failed to appear before the committee are to refund the sum of N41,936,140,005 while the PPPRA is to refund the sum of N312,279,000,000 being excess payment it made to itself. The refunds are to be made within three months.