No Record of PMS Consumed Daily, PPPRA Tells House

Udora Orizu in Abuja

The Petroleum Product Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) on Thursday told the House of Representatives Committee on Finance that there were no records of the volume of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) consumed daily in the country.

Addressing the lawmakers at the interactive session on the 2020-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), the agency’s Director, Finance and Administration, J.T Peters said the only records available to them which the NNPC also had access to was the record of PMS discharged at the various depots nationwide and the volume trucked out of those depot.

He told the committee that the issue of volume of PMS consumption in the country had been a major challenge even in the Ministry, leading to the setting up of a special committee known as Operation White.

He said that the issue of smuggling had ⁰pmade it difficult to determine the volume of PMS consumed in the country daily, hence the inclusion of the Nigeria Customs Service in the committee.

According to him, “The issue of daily consumption has been an issue in the Ministry and based on the challenges in determining the issue of consumption, the Ministry decided to form a committee known as Operation White. Members of that committee are drawn from PPPRA,NNPC, DPR, Nigeria Customs Service and Civil Defence. The most challenging factor that makes national consumption very difficult is the issue of smuggling.

“That is why Customs are present in the committee. So, the figures that is used most time for consumption is the truck out figure from the various facilities nation wide. That figure comes mainly from PPPRA. That was the figures we gave you on Tuesday for 2018, 2019 and 2020. Because of the principle used in determining administrative charges and subsidy, the figures normally used is the discharged figure which the PPPRA, DPR and the representatives of the parties determine. Discharge is what is discharged at the various facilities while truck out is what leaves those facilities nationwide. The consumption is based on truck out while charges is based on discharge at the port or depot.”

Responding, Chairman of the Committee on Finance, Hon. James Faleke said PPPRA was important to determining the volume of PMS consumed in the country on a daily as well as revenue from that.

He said, “the other day, NNPC told us that they don’t have records of their on and that they pick records from PPPRA. He said the only records of volume NNPC has is what leaves their depot. They records NNPC presented to us was gotten from PPPRA. So, PPPRA is so critical to the determination of what volume of PMS we consume in Nigeria and of course, in relation to their IGR because for every litre that is consumed, PPPRA has a fee it collects. Before now, it was 30 kobo. It was later increased to N1.23 kobo in July. Two days ago (Tuesday), PPPRA made a presentation to us and when we took a glance at the presentations, we observed some contradictions in the figures and it got to a stage when we asked the DFA to confirm those figures and he requested for another day and we are here today.”

Faleke thereby directed the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) to scrutinize all revenues and transactions PPPRA since 2018.

He also asked the FRC to scrutinize and determine all the unremitted outstanding revenue based on the levy collected on billion of litres of Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS) since 2018.

Faleke noted that the directive was necessary looking at the conflicting revenue figures claimed by the agency and the outstanding remittances running into billions.