Leadership (Abuja)
Philip Nyam and Adesuwa Tsan
12 November 2009
Abuja — The House of Representatives yesterday denied reports that it supported the deregulation of the petroleum sector policy, which is being canvasssed by the Federal Government.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Dimeji Bankole, made this known yesterday even as he advised his colleagues who are committee chairmen to desist from making unguarded statements that are likely to bring the House into disrepute.
He said, "The position of the House is taken on the floor of the House. I advise that personal opinions be kept personal instead of bringing the House into disrepute."
Bankole made this stand known following reports in the media, credited to the Chairman of the House Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Hon. Clever Ikisikpo, that the House had aligned itself with the plans of the government to deregulate the sector.
Raising the issue during yesterday's plenary, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Mohammed Ali Ndume (ANPP, Borno), noted that consistent statements from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation about the deregulation policy had caused panic buying by the populace.
According to him, the NNPC should not have put the cart before the horse and deliberated with the parliament first instead of resorting to dialogue with the Nigerian Labour Congress, which, according to him, had no constitutional right to make laws for the country.
He called on Nigerians to oppose the policy vehemently, adding that the NLC had no legal responsibility to negotiate between the masses and the government.
Ndume stressed that it was the responsibility of the National Assembly to work on the requests of the people over any national issue, pointing out that the government shouldn't have taken action on deregulating the sector without consulting them first. He said: "the Minister of petroleum should know that the deregulation policy is hated by the people and since the government claims to be working for them, let him take the policy down to them and seek their consent before going ahead with it".
Contributing to the matter, Hon. Dino Melaye said that the media in the past week has been awash with reports that the House had given its blessing to the planned deregulation by the executive.
He noted that the reports emanated from an interview granted by Hon. Clever Ikisikpo when he and his committee, the House Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), was on an oversight visit to NNPC facilities in Lagos, adding that the impression being passed across to the ordinary Nigerian was that of an uncaring parliament.
When Bankole called on Ikisikpo to clarify the issue, he admitted that he made the statement, but that it was at the level of committee.
But the deputy chairman of the committee, Hon. Aro Bamidele disagreed that the stand was that of the committee, adding that the chairman said the committee would only support deregulation if it would make the refineries in the country work.
Meanwhile, after a heated debate, the House of Representatives yesterday passed the N352.8 billion supplementary Appropriation Bill submitted last week by President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua for second reading.
The budget, which has been referred to the Appropriation committee for further scrutiny is to finance the post-amnesty programme and cushion the effect of the forthcoming deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector. Out of the N352.8 billion, N96.3 billion is for additional recurrent expenditure, while the balance of N256.5 billion is for capital expenditure.
Leading the debate for the consideration of the bill, leader of the House, Hon. Tunde Akogun said the supplementary bill is to facilitate some government emergency spending regimes, augment spending shortfalls and support the real sector reactivation programmes.
He said part of the expenditure items include the support for the post amnesty intervention programme in the Niger Delta in order to ensure peace in the region by restoring all oil production activities shut down as a result of militancy.
Akogun explained that another key point of the supplementary budget was the provision of palliative measures to cushion the immediate effect of the impending deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry.
The budget also seeks to service a counterpart funding of a negotiated loan with the Chinese government for Abuja-Kaduna rail lines. And to offer augmentation of the shortfall in rehabilitation of Lagos - Jebba, and Jebba-Kano rail tracks.
According to Akogun, 'The troubling pension palaver of NITEL/MTEL is equally sought to be resolved once and for all. To achieve this, provision is made for facility to offset the pension overhang thereby facilitating the eventual smooth buyout of NITEL/MTEL."
Details of the budget proposal shows that post- amnesty intervention is allocated N114 billion, the revolving fund to procure vehicles for the public mass transit programme is to gulp N10 billion, poverty alleviation intervention N1 billion while the resuscitation of the textile industry is allocated N10 billion.
Procurement of 25 railway locomotives is allocated N12.5 billion, rehabilitation of the Jebba-Kano rail lines and Lagos-Jebba rail lines was allocated N3 and N1.7 billion respectively. Also captured in the supplementary is the rehabilitation of roads.
The House, however, questioned the inclusion of N66.5 billion for the dualisation of the Airport/Kubwa road and seed for development of the FCT residential districts. Members argued that the minister had before now informed the House that he was going to execute those projects using the Private-Public -partnership (PPP) wondering why the same items were featured in the supplementary budget again.
Although, they were several observations by various members, when Speaker Dimeji Bankole who presided over the session finally put the question, the ayes were in the majority and the budget was passed and committed to the committee on appropriation.
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