Petroleum Ministry unable to Account for N500million PIB Publicity Funds

Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke

Revelations emerged on how the Ministry of Petroleum Resources misappropriated N500 million allocated for the promotion of Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) in the 2013 budget without accounting for it.

The disclosure was made when the ministry appeared before the Senate Committee on Gas for the defence of its 2014 budget in the National Assembly.

This came as the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), which attributed the current scarcity of petrol to the non-renewal of contracts of some independent marketers for the importation of petrol, also told the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) during its budget defence that the non-payment of subsidy to marketers by the federal government was hindering the importation of fuel and thus had resulted in the shortage.

While appearing before the gas committee on behalf of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Danladi Kifasi, said he could not explain the details of the expenditure because he was new in the ministry, having been posted to the ministry in August last year.

According to him, the only records at his disposal showed that the N500 million was spent on radio and television jingles, newspaper advertisements and monitoring vehicles, among others. He however, failed to give the breakdown of the expenditure.
 
A member of the committee, Senator Bello Tukur (Adamawa Central), who raised the issue, queried the rationale behind the involvement of the ministry in PIB campaign, noting that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had been the agency driving the bill.

But in what seemed to be an afterthought, the ministry's Director, Public Relations and Press, Mr. Kingsley Agha, claimed after the session that the ministry was not given the opportunity to give details of the expenditure.

He also claimed that there was documentary evidence on how the money was used to erect billboards in strategic locations in major cities of the country, adding that part of the funds was also used for radio and television campaigns.