BY INALEGWU SHAIBU
THE Senate and House of Representatives Joint Committee on Gas yesterday threatened to dump the 2011 budget proposal of the Ministry of Petroleum because of the non submission of the budget proposals of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to the National Assembly.

Chairman of the Joint Committee, Senator Osita Izunaso who issued the threat yesterday at the budget defence of the Ministry ordered the Ministry to submit NNPC’s 2011 budget on or before tomorrow or risk missing out on the 2011 budget.

He said, “we have not seen NNPC budget. The National Assembly resolved that we must see the budget of NNPC, Nigerians must know how much is been generated and how they are spending it. They must bring it before tomorrow. NNPC cannot be a lawless institution.”

Senator Osita who also queried the 2011 budget estimate of the Ministry cancelled the meeting due to the absence of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke.

The Committee ordered the Minister to appear before it tomorrow, while observing that the Ministry’s 2011 budget is in complete variance with the 2010 budget.

He questioned the 85 percent introduction of new projects in the 2011 budget, saying it will amount to abandoning uncompleted projects in the 2010 budget.

He said, “we are not going to continue with this budget defence. We have look at the 2011 budget of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and we discovered that the budget did not synchronize with 2010 budget.

“In fact there are over 85 per cent new projects, what happened to the previous projects that are on-going. Project is not something that you just wake up and do half work that is why we have three years development programme.

“Why is it that 2010 did not synchronize with 2010 budget, why is that a parastatal like DPR is having over N25 billion for recurrent and only about N5 billion for capital, something must be wrong somewhere.”

“Why is it that all the issues we raised before concerning the 2010 budget none has being answered, we have raised important issues in the past, we have talked about Chevron Gas to liquid project, they have not given us answer, we have talked about Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline, no answer has be given to us among others, even the West Africa gas pipeline we don’t even know where we are at the moment.

“You can be rest assured that if this happened again, there will be no budget for the Petroleum Ministry.