Sure-P’s ‘missing’ fund

Panel member Kabiru Garba Marafa explained that SURE-P was expected to receive N32 from each litre of petrol sold in Nigeria. He said that NNPC records showed that from January 2012 to September 2013,  some 25 billion litres was sold, giving a total of about N800 billion due to SURE-P committee for the 21-month period. […]

Panel member Kabiru Garba Marafa explained that SURE-P was expected to receive N32 from each litre of petrol sold in Nigeria. He said that NNPC records showed that from January 2012 to September 2013,  some 25 billion litres was sold, giving a total of about N800 billion due to SURE-P committee for the 21-month period. However, only N300 billion of that amount was remitted to SURE-P.
The whereabouts of the balance of N500 billion are yet to be ascertained, and the non-appearance of officials of two government agencies responsible for collecting the subsidy savings and remittance to SURE-P, Minister of Petroleum Resources Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke and the NNPC Group Managing Director Mr Andrew Yakubu, at the public hearing meant that it would take awhile to do that.
Financial procedures, including accounting for revenues that accrue from the sale of crude or refined petroleum products, have continued to be marred by colossal fraud due principally to their non-adherence. There have always been huge and often unexplained discrepancies in the amount of money that accrues to NNPC and what NNPC remits to CBN; and what CBN disburses to federation account or (in this case) the SURE-P.  Tardy paperwork, based largely on  a conscious plan to defraud, has remained the bane of the entire oil industry in Nigeria whether at the up-or downstream sector. NNPC’s persistent inability to definitively and accurately account for the daily quantity of petroleum products that was drilled, imported, refined or sold, is a big loophole most likely deliberately kept ajar to ensure that the oil industry remains a drainpipe siphoning the country’s resources.
Although a couple or so of SURE-P’s intervention programmes,  like railway infrastructure, for instance, appear to have hopeful signs of success,  their overall impact falls far below expectation. Several other factors also contribute to this poor result. The fact that SURE-P employees in some states across the country are owed arrears of their monthly stipend indicates poor implementation at state level. The programme’s expenditure pattern, in which huge sums of money are spent on travelling allowances of officials and publicity stunts of doubtful value, is also part of the crisis militating against the scheme’s impact.
The further removal of any part of, or the entire, subsidy on oil is largely dependent on the success of the SURE-P as presently constituted. However, its implementation so far has not justified most of the arguments for the partial removal of the subsidy in January 2012. This will almost certainly nullify any further attempt any attempt to convince the general public over other imperatives for continuing with the removal of subsidy on petroleum products.
Scrapping the scheme, as the senate special ad-hoc committee on SURE-P has threatened to recommend, is not a good option, for now. Like any other public agency in the country, strict adherence to rules and punishment for their violations are the key to repositioning and eventual success. But a full investigation into the alleged missing of N500bn with a view to retrieving it is called for, and those responsible identified and sanctioned.