By OKEY NDIRIBE

ABUJA—House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum (Upstream), yesterday, summoned the Minister of Petroleum Resources Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke, over the ministry’s huge allocations for rents in the ministry’s 2013 budget proposal.

Members of the committee were miffed that funds proposed for rents in the 2013 budget for agencies’ in the ministry amounted to over N1 billion, besides a billion naira earlier ‘wasted’ by the ministry in acquiring a property that was later revoked.

The Committee, chaired by Ajibola Muraina (PDP-Oyo), at the budget defense meeting with Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, observed that several agencies in the oil sector still appropriated several billions of naira as rents in their annual budget, instead of striving to have their own buildings.

Ajibola wondered why government ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs, could not agree among themselves to do the right thing out of patriotism.

, adding that the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) lost over N1 billion spent on a piece of land only for it to be revoked by the Federal Capital Development Agency, FCDA.

“It baffles me why these Ministers find it difficult to interact and resolve these land matters amicably. NEITI is saying it has applied several times for land in the FCT without success. This is unbelievable,” he said.

He said the Minister for Petroleum, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke, should work hard to ensure that most of the agencies under her ministry got land for their permanent office buildings instead of paying billions of naira as annual rents.

The committee also asked NEITI’s management, led by its Chairman, Professor Humphrey Assisi Asobie, and Executive Secretary, Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, to be concise and categorical in the presentation of their budgets, instead of relying only on the template provided by the office of the Accountant General of the Federation.

The committee, however, commended NEITI for its role in establishing openness in the oil and gas and mineral resources sectors.

… question conflicting Agric Ministry’s allocations

ABUJA—House of Representatives is set for a showdown with the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, over conflicting positions given on the 2013 budget.

Adesina had in a letter to 39 agencies, dated November 20, 2012, with a reference number FMA/DFA/3415/1/117, threatened sanctions against any agency that sought an increment from the Ministry’s proposed budget as submitted to the National Assembly in September.

The minister’s directive, signed on his behalf by one Mr. Idris Mamman, read in part: “You are also to ensure that your programmes/projects and capital ceilings are at par with what was approved in the executive bill as any deviation from the 2013 Executive Bill will be viewed as serious misconduct. Please ensure compliance.”

The minister also urged the agencies to provide his office copies of their proposals to the committee, with a view to ensuring that none of the agencies sought an increase of their “envelopes.”

“I am directed to request you(agencies) to submit to the Office of the Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development soft and hard copies of documents prepared for 2013 budget defence with National Assembly for his information and record purposes,” the memo stated.

The total budget of the ministry for 2013 stands at N81.41billion.

However, Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, Tahir Mohammed Monguno(Borno-ANPP), dismissed the Minister’s warning to the agencies, insisting that the National Assembly was constitutionally empowered to increase or reduce budgets estimates by the Presidency where and when necessary.

He advised the agencies to discard the warning of the Minister and suggest increases in their estimates if they could convince the committee that they needed bigger allocations.

He said: “I have a copy of the Minister’s letter here warning agencies before us not to seek to exceed their budget envelopes for 2013, and that if they do so, they would face consequences. But I want to stress here that the issue of budget remains within the power of the National Assembly.

“It is the National Assembly that would decide how a budget should look like. The duty of the executive is to just present estimates and nothing more; so I want you to disregard what the Minister has written and go ahead with your proposals.”