From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee probing the Petroleum Products Subsidy Regime from 2013 to date has summoned the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele and the chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Muhammad Nami, to appear before it.
The committee, while expressing displeasure that the CBN governor and the FIRS boss sent a deputy director and special assistant respectively, said the duo must appear before it to provide insight on the subsidy payment in the period under review.
Representative of the CBN governor Hussein Kagara, while responding to lawmakers’ query, said he could only answer questions relating to technical issues of subsidy payments.
He explained that the apex bank cannot print all the documents requested by the panel as they were too voluminous. He added that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) has 200 accounts domiciled with the CBN.
“If all the questions that you are going to ask are related to technical matters that concern subsidy payments, I will be able to provide answers here but if they are outside the technical aspects of the subsidy transaction then I will not be able to respond.
“With respect to the issue of documents, the truth of the matter is that some of these documents are actually voluminous and we can’t be able to print must of these documents.
“For example in one of your requests, you asked us to produce all the accounts of NNPC that are domicile with the CBN, NNPC are close to 200 accounts with CBN and they are voluminous.”
However, chairman, Ibrahim Aliyu, in his ruling said if there were issues the deputy director cannot speak on, it means the management of the CBN ought to appear.
“There are areas that you can not answer, you see this is the fundamental reason why the senior members of the management are supposed to appear before the committee.
“We are left with no alternative than follow the procedure of the House. Where you can not provide hardcopies (requested documents) provide soft copies. We will expect you on the 18th of August , the motion passed, the FIRS chairman is to appear before this committee on 18th of August, 2022,” Aliyu stated.
Earlier, a member of the panel, Mark Gbillah, in a motion seeking the appearance of Emefiele and Nami, in person, said their absence showed their disposition to the subsidy probe.
“N6.7 trillion in less than a year is being expended on subsidy. We could expect that the CBN Governor would come here personally to address such an issue and the FIRS chairman as well. I guess they believe this issue is not important enough for them to be here.
“So, Mr chairman in my own opinion, I don’t think we should bother hearing any of the representatives of these two agencies that are here today. We would like the CBN Governor and FIRS Chairman to be here in person before this honourable committee of the House to address this critical issue,” Gbillah stated.