House Rejects C’ttee’s Report on Adulterated Fuel, Demands Further Investigation

•Moves to investigate multiple processing fees imposed on JAMB candidates

Udora Orizu and Juliet Akoje

The House of Representatives yesterday stepped down a report by its Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) which it had last month mandated to investigate the importation and distribution of Adulterated Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) into Nigeria.

The lawmakers who described the recommendations of the report as falling short of expectations of Nigerians, demanded further investigation.

The House had on February 10, while adopting a motion of urgent national importance, sponsored by the Chief Whip, Hon. Tahir Monguno, mandated its committee on petroleum downstream to investigate the release of adulterated petroleum in the country with a view in ensuring that culprits are brought to book and make recommendations to avoid reoccurrence.

The committee was also mandated to ascertain whether the importation, distribution and dispensing of the toxic petroleum or petrol in Nigeria till date conforms to the international standard.

Members of the Committee where further mandated to find out the roles played, if any by the Nigerian National Company Limited (NNPC), the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), among others and report back to the House within four weeks for further legislative action.

Hon. Alex Egbona, presenting recommendations from the investigation, on behalf of the Committee Chairman, Hon. Abdullahi Gaya suggested that the Minister of State, Petroleum Resources shall initiate the adoption of 2017 PMS Standard (NIS 116:2017) as approved by SON for future importation of the product into the country.

The committee also recommended that the Minister of Petroleum Resources should expedite action for the completion of the rehabilitation work of the three major refineries at Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna to boost local refining and reduce over-dependence on imported PMS into Nigeria.

The downstream committee further recommended that the NNPC and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) shall procure tracking devices to monitor the movement of trucks from all deports to their destinations across the country.

This, members of the Committee said would mitigate smuggling and make the product available for domestic use.

Some other recommendations included, “that the Federal Government shall position the SON to implement its mandate to the latter by subjecting all imported white petroleum and other products to the offshore conformity assessment and also resume routine quality control of them and other products imported into the country at our various seaports, airports and borders throughout Nigeria as enshrined in the SON enabling Act of 2015. This will finally address the reoccurrence of the importation of off-specification PMS and other substandard goods into Nigeria.”

However, in his contribution Deputy Minority Leader, Hon. Toby Okechukwu was of the view that findings of the committee should speak to the problem at hand.

He said, “the recommendations don’t speak to the problem. I have not seen in the recommendations what should happen to the companies that imported the products. They should tell us the entire gamut of their investigation, we want to solve the problem and not looking to gloss over.”

Corroborating, Okechukwu’s assertion, Hon. Ajibola Muraino said the recommendations didn’t address the assignment earlier given to them by the House

“I’m surprised that the terms of reference this House gave to them, looking at the recommendations has not been addressed at all. These should have addressed so that we can move into the future with hope that this problem won’t occur again,” Muraino said

On her part, Hon. Lynda Ikpeazu said the Committee didn’t deal with their mandate very well, hence they need to do a more in-depth work.

Agreeing, the Deputy Speaker, Hon Idris Wase who presided over the consideration in his ruling, directed the Committee to go back and conduct further investigation, and come back with recommendations that will be satisfactory to Nigerians.

Wase said, “When this motion was considered, I was the one presiding, it’s only fair we reflect the truth. Go and do in-depth investigation and come back with a recommendation Nigerians will be happy with. The report should be stepped down. They should go back and redo the work and come back with better recommendations.”

 House Moves to Investigate Multiple Processing Fees Imposed on JAMB Candidates

Meanwhile, The House of representatives has mandated its Committees on Basic Education, Tertiary Education and Services to investigate the multiple processing and/or administrative fees imposed by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and its accredited agents on candidates and report back within four weeks for further legislative action

This was sequel to the adoption of a motion calling to ‘Investigate the Imposition of Multiple Processing and or Administration Fees by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and its Accredited Agents on JAMB candidates,’ moved by Hon. Sergius Ose Ogun, during plenary presided by the speaker of the House, Hon  Femi Gbajabiamila yesterday.

Ogun explained that Section 88(1) and (2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) empowers the National Assembly to conduct investigations into the activities of any authority executing or administering laws made by the National Assembly.

“pursuant to Section 5(1)(a) of the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board Act, the Board was established to, among other things, control the conduct of matriculation examinations for candidates seeking admission into universities, polytechnics and Colleges of Education in Nigeria.

“In recent times, in addition to the registration fees for the examination, all sorts of processing and/or administrative fees are imposed on JAMB examination candidates.”

He informed the House that for every other service, apart from the JAMB Registration provided in relation to the examination,

an administrative fee was imposed by JAMB, which does not include the CBT Centre Service Charge collected by JAMB accredited CBT Centers and some of the charges are as follows.

The services fees as listed by the lawmaker were, “Application for Transfer 7,000, Change of Admission Letter with Registration Number 5,000, Application for correction of data (like date of birth, etc) 2,500, Printing of JAMB Result Slip 1,000, Printing of JAMB Admission Letter 1,000, Change of Institution/Course 2,500, Retrieving of JAMB Registration Number 1,000.”

Ogun further explained that by the provisions of the Act, JAMB is an examination conducting body and not primarily a revenue-generating organ of the federal government.