Leadership (Abuja)
From Philip Nyam And Adesuwa Osunde
20 November 2008
Abuja — As part of its inquest into the oil sector, the House of Representatives Wednesday summoned the minister of energy (gas) Mr. Odein Ajumogobia and the group managing director of Nigerian National petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Alhaji Abubakar Yar'Adua in connection with the contract for the construction of Excravos-Lagos pipeline expansion and the East West Gas pipeline awarded by the federal government at the cost of N72 billion.
Also invited to appear next Tuesday alongside the minister are the contractors handling the project whose non-execution has been attributed to lack of capacity from the ministry of petroleum resources to supervise and implement.
The chairman, House committee on gas and ad-hoc committee investigating the activities of the oil and gas sector, Hon Igo Aguma who announced the decision to summon the minister and his team expressed dissatisfaction on the budget performance of the ministry saying the generation, transmission and distribution of power is depend on the availability of gas.
According to him, about 150 million Standard Cubic Feet (SCUF) was anticipated in the Lagos Expansion and East West gas project to boost the supply of electricity across the major tarmac power stations.
"We must say that we are entirely not happy about the execution of the project especially at this period when the financial year is coming to an end. Because the NNPC and the ministry of energy have failed the nation in carrying out their statutory responsibilities."
While briefing the committee on the budget performance of the ministry yesterday, the acting permanent secretary, Abubakar Yabo said of the total contract sum of about N4. 5 billion has been released to the ministry while the 2008 budget provided N6 billion to fund the project in the year, stressing that the funds are kept in the ministry account awaiting the commencement of the project.
Yabo disclosed that the contract was transferred to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for implementation in line with its responsibilities in the oil and gas sector since the parent ministry does not have direct supervision over oil and gas production.
"We are not disputing that N6 billion was appropriated in the 2008 budget for the budget but the ministry does not have the gas department. Several memos have been raised in the past for the execution of the project by the NNPC. So we are surprised that NNPC response on the issue has been very poor."
He declared that NNPC which ordinarily is a parastatal under the ministry is operating independently and its operation is not known to the ministry although the Group Managing Director of the NNPC briefs the Minister periodically on the developments in the oil and gas sector.
The permanent secretary argued that the project cannot be called or tagged a failed project because the implementation process is in the pipeline as soon as funds are made available to the contractors to commence work.
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