By Modupe Gbadeyanka
An investigation to determine how much fuel is consumed daily in Nigeria has commenced and it is being conducted by the House of Representatives.
Speaking at the plenary on Wednesday, the Speaker of the House, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila, stated that knowing what the nation consumes was necessary before talks about subsidy on petrol can be effective.
“Before we can even begin to talk about subsidy, we need to know how much fuel we are consuming as a nation. We have had figures bandied here and there without any authenticity,” the Speaker said.
He also said there was the need to look into the state of the four refineries in Nigeria in a bid to make recommendations on how to “bring them back to life.”
He, therefore, constituted two ad-hoc committees to conduct the separate investigations, noting that the panel for the refineries would be required “to know the state of disrepair or repair and determine what will be needed to bring the refineries back to life again.”
The committee to investigate the level of daily fuel consumption in Nigeria is chaired by Mr Abdullahi Bingo and has 14 other members and has four weeks to turn in a report.
Mr Gbajabiamila directed the committee not to restrict its source of information to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited but should reach out to other sources, including “international experts,” organised labour, transport unions, “every organisation that deals with facts/ documents” and motor licensing offices across the federation.
The committee investigating the state of refineries has Mr Johnson Oghuma and has 14 other members.
