N10bn Private Jet: Diezani Alison-Madueke To Appear Before Senate.

As the House Committee finalizes plans to grill the Minister of Petroleum, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, over a N10bn luxury jet saga, the Senate has intimated that it will be left with no choice but to invite the embattled Minister over, if the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) continues to prove uncooperative. The NNPC has refused to furnish a Senate committee with details of some of its dealings and The Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), Senator Magnus Abe has said the Minister may have to appear before the committee to shed light on sundry expenditure including the private jet hire.

“We’ve not informed the minister of the delay from NNPC and there are issues we know will involve the minister, but I don’t think this, at this point, involves the minister” Senator Abe had told reporters at the weekend.

He continued; “But if we can’t resolve it, we will ask the minister to come with them. But, at the moment, it’s between the committee and the NNPC. The NNPC is a corporation. We believe we can sort this out.

“We asked about the crude swap transactions; to know exactly what volumes are being swapped and what the country is getting in return.

“We haven’t seen that. We also wanted information on the rehabilitation of the refineries to know exactly how far they’ve gone with those programmes; we haven’t seen that.

“We wanted information about the volumes of products that are being sold via the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company (PPMC). We actually haven’t seen that. We wanted information on the aircraft that has now become an issue. We’ve actually asked for this information since last year and we haven’t seen that.

“So, there are lots of what I would call routine information from the NNPC, which should be between us, the committee and the NNPC.

“The last sitting of the committee on these information we require was particularly bad! They didn’t send anybody.

“It was only when I got back to the office that I saw a letter from the NNPC, saying that they were still trying to collate this information…since last year, they’ve been collating this information.”

The NNPC has been accused by the House and the Senate of conducting its affairs in secrecy and shunning oversight invitations at will. The NNPC had come out to publicly defend the Petroleum Minister over the private jet saga and only recently hired barely literate protesters (complete with error laden placards) who demanded that the Minister be left alone.

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