By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

“By our own calculations here predicated on the records made available by the relevant government agencies, subsidy monies being remitted to SURE-P since inception last year have been on the template of N12.60kobo per litre of fuel sold as against N32 it is supposed to be, meaning that N18.60kobo has always been stolen per litre since then, which is amounting to N500 billion now”. With these words, the  Chairman, Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Subsidy Reinvestment Empowerment Programme, SURE-P, Senator Abdul Ningi, alleged fraud in SURE-P operation during its interactive session with relevant stakeholders of the programme.

The SURE-P  has generated controversy especially on the alleged secrecy surrounding the management of the scheme and the beneficiaries in the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.

Going by the disclosure of the management committee of the programme, there are 3,000 beneficiaries from each state of the federation and the FCT totaling about 111, 000 out of the proposed 5,000 from each state. According to the committee, each of the beneficiaries receives N10,000 monthly. But there has not been documentary evidence of the claims before the Senate despite request by the ad-hoc committee.

From the position of the upper legislative chamber, the Federal Government SURE-P seems to have become a drain pipe.

Mrs Deziani Alison-Madueke

From the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to the Ministry of Finance, the Central bank of Nigeria, CBN, and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, there have been allegations of lack of adequate information and transparency in the management of the programme.

This development has made the Senate committee not only to threaten to stop further appropriation for the programme in the 2014 fiscal year but also to scrap it.

At the interactive session, penultimate Tuesday, the committee raised the alarm that N500 billion had not been accounted for by the CBN, NNPC, and the Petroleum Resources Ministry while all the attempts made by the committee to invite them to appear and give explanations on the programme had not yielded any positive result.

While blowing the lid over the alleged unremitted fuel subsidy money into the SURE-P account from January 2012 to September this year, a member of the committee, Senator Kabiru Marafa, APC Zamfara Central, alleged that the fraud was carried out by the relevant government agencies by remitting N12.60 kobo as subsidy money per litre of fuel into SURE-P account as against the N32 which was the actual amount representing the increase of fuel price in January last year from N65 to N97 per litre.

Marafa, who made the disclosures at a special session the committee was to have with the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezeani Allison-Madueke, the NNPC management and the CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, supported his claims with the documents made available to the committee by NNPC and SURE-P management on the total volume of fuel sold and monies remitted into SURE-P account from inception last year till September this year.

According to him, available records before the committee from the NNPC and SURE-P showed that from January 2012 to September this year, a total of 25 billion litres of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, had been consumed in the country which if multiplied by N32, the actual subsidy removal is supposed to have generated about N800 billion for the SURE-P programme as against the N300 billion released to it so far.

The senator added that a flat rate of N15 billion has been remitted into SURE-P account per month since inception last year whereas NNPC‘s records of monthly consumption in the country are not on fixed volume as the volume of fuel sold in January last year was differed from the one sold in February of the same year not to talk of January this year.

“This committee wrote to the relevant organizations that benefit from this SURE-P programme when it was inaugurated. It was said that the subsidy regime was going to be N32 a litre and this committee wrote the NNPC to ascertain the quantity of fuel being imported from the time this subsidy programme started and NNPC replied the committee that from January, 2012 to December, 2013 which if you calculate, it will give about 21 months, they gave a break-down of the quantity per month. “When you put up everything, it comes to roughly about 25 billion litres altogether for the 21 months captured. Now, if you multiply 25 billion by 32, you get about N800 billion, and what SURE-P told us when they came here when we invited them was that they collected about N300 billion at 15 billion flat rate per month”.

Before the Marafa revelations, the Chairman of the committee, Ningi, had taken a swipe at the Minister of Petroleum and the CBN Governor for not appearing before the committee as arranged, threatening to take actions against them within the confines of the law.

The Senate Special Committee threatened that it may recommend the scrapping of  SURE-P which, it noted, had become a drain pipe.

“As we are speaking, we sent letters of invitation to both agencies which were duly acknowledged.

“I have been a member of the National Assembly right from inception and I have never seen this crass of impunity and disregard of constituted authority. When we deliberated on the issue of the Minister of Works, I was expecting official reprimand from the Presidency and now we have a repeat from the agents of the president”, he said.

“I think what this tells us is that SURE-P which seems to be a cardinal programme of this government is being undermined from the inside. I have no doubt in my mind that the non-appearance today further confirms our fears and reservations of a lot of Nigerians on the secrecy of the implementation of  SURE -P  and part of our mandate is to unbundle, to open up the details of the implementation of the programme.

“We thought that NNPC is a key to this programme and we wanted to compare notes with the CBN as to monies that accrue to this programme directly from the NNPC.

“This committee and indeed the senate will use every legitimate opportunity in calling to order those who threat us with impunity and disdain“.

The committee equally stated that going by records, only N207 billionof the N300 billion released to SURE-P was used without while there was no proper account for the balance of N 93 billion.

Later in an interview with journalists, Marafa said, “It was said that the subsidy regime was going to be N32 a litre and this committee wrote the NNPC to ascertain the quantity of fuel being imported from the time this subsidy programme started.

“NNPC replied the committee that from January, 2012 to December, 2013 which, if you calculate, it will give about 21 months, they gave a break-down of the quantity per month. When you put up everything, it comes to roughly about 25 billion litres per month.

“ Now, if you multiply 25 billion by 32, you get about N800 billion, and what SURE-P told us when they came here was that they collected about N300 billion at 15 billion flat rate per month, so if you multiply 21 by 15 billion, you will get about N315 billion.

“So what we are talking about is the amount involved which is N500 billion, where is it? That is what we wanted NNPC to tell us. They are the ones importing the fuel, they are the custodian.

“I am surprised that CBN was not here because they are the custodian but if their management was here, the question of how they came about the N15 billion they are remitting to SURE-P would have been asked.

“Maybe, CBN will tell us this is what NNPC is remitting to them; maybe NNPC will say no, we have been remitting this amount of money but CBN is remitting only  N15 billion.

“In January 2012, the nation consumed about 1.3 billion litres but if you look at February 2013,we consumed about 941 million litres, so you can see that the remittances are supposed to be fluctuating but when SURE-P came, they told the committee that they have been receiving N15 billion monthly, so we asked, how did they come about it?”