From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The House of Representatives, yesterday, constituted two ad-hoc committees to probe the state of the four refineries and daily fuel consumption figures in the country.
Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila announced the setting up of the panel at plenary naming Abdullahi Ningi as head of the daily fuel consumption panel while Ganiyu Johnson heads the committee probing the state of the refineries.
He listed terms of the two committees to include ascertaining the actual daily fuel consumption in the country given the conflicting figures and what was required for the refineries to be back on stream.
He said the panels were expected to report back to the House in four weeks for further legislative actions.
The setting up of the panels followed plans by organised labour to shut down the country in protest against plans by the Federal Government to halt subsidies on petroleum products.
Though government has suspended the fuel subsidy removal policy, Gbajabiamila said there were questions that must be answered before the House would take a stand on the issue.
“We have had figures bandied here and there without any authenticity. Before we can even begin to talk subsidy like I said, we need to know how much we are consuming.
The second is to look into refineries and state of repair and determine what will be needed to bring our refineries back to life again. In doing their work, they should not restrict themselves to NNPC figures, as NNPC is an interested party of course.
They should go far and wide, talk to experts, talk to labour, talk to national and international experts and those who know.
Talk to the motor vehicles registration centres, we just need to determine how much petrol we consume, talk to the transport companies, deal with facts and figures.”