Reps Committee directs Nigerian Navy to provide records of Petrol imports

The House of Representatives has directed the Nigerian Navy to provide comprehensive details of vessels that imported petrol and exported crude oil from 2017 till date.

The Navy is also to provide details of the owner of the vessels, the importers, exporters, delivery ports as well as the quantity of products.

This was as Adhoc Committee to probe petroleum products subsidy regime from 2017 to 2022, headed by Ibrahim Aliyu, continued its investigative hearing in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

The Committee also directed the Navy to provide details on vessels that were arrested, details of the ownership of such vessels, the agencies the vessels were handed over to, the content of the vessels, their current location, as well as the status of the contents of the vessels.

The Director of Lesson Learnt of the Nigerian Navy, Rear Admiral E Ogaula, who represented the Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Awwal Gambo, had earlier told Committee that it is only information passed to them by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) now Nigeria National Petroleum Limited that they record in their file.

“The Navy only assists the NNPC in ensuring that things work the way it is supposed to. It is not the lead in terms of tanker nominations and all these issues of oil lifting and so. It is the information passed to the Nigerian Navy by the NNPC that we record in our file. Sometimes NNPC might pass information and we record it and at the end of the day some of them are cancelled, some are not. The information we have which we have passed to you are the information sent by NNPC,” he said.

Members of the committee were displeased that the Navy should rely on the NNPC for such information.

House Spokesman, Benjamin Kalu, said, “We leave waterways under your care, therefore independent of what NNPC does, it is your mandate. To say you only rely on what is coming from NNPC does not inspire confidence in Nigerians who allow you to monitor what comes into the country. I know the Navy has a record of every tanker coming or going out that has products that have to do with oil and gas.” 

Another member, Mark Gbillah, said they were taken aback by the response of the Navy.

“On behalf of Nigerians, we are taken aback by your response on such a monumental issue. Is the Navy telling us today with regards to the inflow of vessels and vessels leaving this country, with regards to specific issues that pertain to the NNPC, that you rely only on NNPC’s information? So where then is the role of the Navy?”

The Committee gave the Navy one week to provide the details it demanded.

PIAK