BY EMMAN   OVUAKPORIE
ABUJA—THE recently released Fuel Subsidy Probe Report has indicted Capital Oil and the Nigerian Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, of not being transparent in the sale of NNPC products by the oil marketing company.

In the report, the committee observed that NNPC entered into storage agreement products with a tank farm owner, Capital Oil Limited, and subsequently stored a total volume of 94,330,030 litres in the tank farms of the company.

But due to alleged non-payment of the storage fees for a period of nine months the company sold the entire products belonging to NNPC ostensibly to recover the debt owed it by NNPC.

The committee, however, noted that the agreement did not give the company the right of offset and despite this lack of provision, NNPC bent the rules to accommodate the sale in consideration of the company’s undertaking to allow the corporation to recover the value of the sold products accruing interest on incurred sums over a period of time.

It was further observed that this development underscores the abuse of processes and lack of regard for legal and ethical questions.

It also stated that the whole operation lacked transparency and it became apparent to the committee that the operations of the NNPC were opaque and not transparent and the implication is that it created room for abuses, inefficiencies and manifest lack of accountability.

How PPPRA  colluded with  marketers

The report indicated that the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency , PPPRA, officials colluded with marketers to defraud the nation by confirming products were imported contrary to the reality.

It said: “Pursuant to its statutory mandate as well as its responsibilities under the PSF Scheme, PPPRA deployed its staff to monitor and verify data on petroleum products reception and distribution at jetties and depots.

“However, we observed that there was massive collution between PPPRA staff and some oil marketers as to defeat the envisaged purpose of the monitoring and verification.

“The agency is mandated to prevent collusion in the industry, per section 5 (v i) of the PPPRA mandate under the PSF Guidelines, the agency witnessed and confirmed all purpoted discharges of imported cargo and went ahead to process all the documents to the Federal Ministry of Finance, yet false claims were rampant.