To this end, the House of Representatives committee on Petroleum Resources Downstream asked the management of Capital Oil and Gas to appear before the committee today or face legislative sanctions.
The lawmakers said the summons became imperative due to the inability of the Committee to successfully serve its invasion on the company despite many attempt to do so.
The Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Joseph Akinlaja states this during the opening of a two-day public investigative on the disappearance of the petroleum products warehoused in Capital Oil’s tanks, said the matter over which the company was being invited has impact on the funding of the National budget.
In his presentation, NNPC’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), Downstream, Henry Nkem-Obih said external assistance or the recovery of the money was sought after all internal mechanism to resolve the issue with Capital oil failed.
He said: “The Thorough agreement we had clearly states that no party involved in this transaction is authorised to touch each other’s inventory without a written consent of the other party, but in this case no such thing happened.
“Since NNPC is a government agency, the matter was referred to the DSS and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to recover the loss of government asset valued at over N11 billion.
“We have since been engaged in various levels of negotiations from the agreement level where there is a notice period within which the defaulting party is expected to return the product to storage either in liters or in cash.
“It was when this did not happen that we sought help from other quarters to ensure that we recover this timely.
“The update is that Capita oil and gas has since paid N2 billion out of the outstanding and we are engaged in discussion to ensure that we recover the rest in full and the negotiation is facilitated by the DSS.
“We hope that Capital Oil will comply in full in the shortest possible time because this does have implications for funding the National budget and the National revenues”.
Earlier in his remarks while declaring open the hearing, Speaker Yakubu Dogara said there is the need to protect the revenue of the Federal government from diversion by some individuals.
While he called for sanctions for perpetrators of the illegal transportation of petroleum products, the Speaker noted that the disappearance of N11b worth of petroleum products belonging to NNPC at Capital oil farm tank in Lagos should not be swept under the carpet.
“This could jeopardise the national economy by possibly reducing the Government revenue thereby yielding a serious set-back on the country’s struggle out of economic recession.
“The Committee should thoroughly investigate the matter and ensure that perpetrators are sanctioned accordingly so as to prevent re-occurrence and to also act as deterrent to others”, the speaker said.
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