The Nigerian House of Representatives has agreed to summon the Auditor General of the Federation, Mr Okolieaboh Sylvia, to provide documentary evidence on the audit of funds spent on fuel subsidies.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria, this was revealed by Rep. Ibrahim Aliyu, Chairman of the Special Ad hoc Committee on Fuel Subsidies, in Abuja on Thursday.
He stated that the Committee is looking for relevant financial transactions pertaining to the fuel subsidy for the time period under consideration.
Rep Ibrahim Aliyu said the auditor General is to appear before on August 30 for an explanation of fuel subsidy payments between 2013 and 2022.
They request that the auditor-general provides documentary evidence on the audit carried out on the monies spent on fuel subsidy by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Ltd for the period.
Rep Aliyu made this known during the scrutiny of documents submitted by the representative of the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGoF), Mr Okolieaboh Sylvia, who was represented by the Director, of Federation Accounts, Mr Mohammed Saleh.
It also demanded AGoF to provide relevant financial transactions on the fuel subsidy for the period under review, citing a bid to ensure fair hearing as enshrined in the law. The committee said it was expecting the AGoF to appear before it on the 8th of September with relevant documents.
It also urged the Auditor General to implement an independent monitoring system to verify the veracity of the transactions, citing the importance of due diligence after Rep. Mark Gbillah (PDP-Benue) identified some discrepancies in the amount computed in the NNPC documents.
The costs of fuel subsidy in Nigeria increased by 890% over a five-year period (2017-2021) in Nigeria even though fuel prices have only increased by 12.1%.
This was disclosed by socioeconomic research firm, SBM Intelligence in its report titled “Growing fuel prices and transport costs: Which way Nigeria.”
