The Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison-Madueke had told the Adhoc Committee Tuesday that she could not say anything about who authorized the payment of subsidy since she was under oath.
Also the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had spoken in the same vein, claiming that as at the time she resumed in August, she could not certainly point at the body that authorized payment of subsidy.
Appearing before the committee yesterday, Constitutional lawyer, Olisa Agbakoba, attributed the deteriorating state of the economy to the failure of successive governments to implement various laws made to govern the system.
The Minister of Finance appearing again yesterday,, when asked by the Chairman of the Investigative Committee, Farouk Lawan, to explain the manner the NNPC made the subsidy deductions and who made the authorization, she gave same response given on Tuesday that she did not know .
The Chairman had also asked her why KPMG audit report was not being implemented, the Minister had told the committee that henceforth all leakages observed would be plugged by the Ministry of Finance.
Asked who registers importers that bring petrol into the country, Dr Okonjo-Iweala answered in the negative, saying her ministry was not in an way involved in the registration of importers or issued license to any company.
On Wednesday, the Executive Secretary of Petroleum Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, Mr Reginald Stanley, also said he was not in the know of who authorized subsidy deductions.
Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mr Austen Oniwon, had spoken in the same vein when he faced the panel.
The Director General, Budget, Mr Bright Okogwu, also evaded the question of who makes authorization for subsidy deductions as he simply said all leakages would be plugged henceforth.
Agbakoba in his presentation, also alleged that the lacuna created by non-enforcement of existing laws exposed Nigeria to invasion and exploitation by some advanced nations of the world, which came to do business in the country.
The legal practitioner, in reacting to fuel subsidy removal, expressed doubts about the existence of any subsidy as being claimed by the Federal Government, insisting that there had not been any convincing evidences that subsidy existed.
Agbakoba, who was former President of Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, made these assertions yesterday while presenting a paper at the Farouk Lawan-led House Ad-hoc Committee set up to investigate the subsidy regime in Nigeria.
He also argued that while deregulation was a welcome global economic phenomenon, implementing the policy in isolation without taking care of other basic salient but very relevant issues in the system would be an effort in futility.
He expressed disappointment that the Nigerian government formed the habit of not patronising indigenous businessmen and professionals, lamenting that while government patronised multinational companies, they used the country’s money to develop their economies.
Noting the negative impact of allowing foreigners to dominate the nation’s business, Agbakoba observed that thousands of foreign ships come to Nigerian ports to do oil business, while the indigenous ship owners remained without serious economic activities.
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