The Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) has beamed its spotlight on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in keeping with the ongoing investigations of the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government.
Chairman of the committee, Magnus Abe, and his team are focusing on the assets of the corporation specifically the private jets and other aircraft owned and.or chartered by the National Oil company. Also the committee has demanded details of Crude swap transactions amid allegations that the country is only refining 100,000 barrels of crude per day.
The absence of senior NNPC officials and related documents at the hearing caused the chairman, Magnus Abe to give the State oil company 7 days to revert with its top management and documents.
Magnus Abe, said: “I agree with NNPC that they need time to collate these documents and then, bring them forward. There are also issues to do with the implementation of the NNPC budget. We’ve also written to them to furnish us with all the details of the budget implementation as the year progresses.
“We accept their reasons for not being here but I would like to seize this opportunity to ask them and very seriously call on NNPC and indeed, call on all government agencies, that cooperating with the legislature is important for the stability of our democracy.
“We need the cooperation of all agencies that are to work with us, in order to safeguard the interest of all Nigerians. So, I will plead with NNPC, to, very quickly, within the next one week, assemble all the documents that we have asked for, particularly documents relating to the distribution of petroleum products in this country and the crude-swap arrangement.