The Senate Committee on Petroleum Downstream has summoned NNPC to defend its 2015 budget on Thursday.
The committee chairman, Senator Magnus Abe, gave the order on Tuesday when the corporation failed to appear before the committee for a scheduled defence of its 2015 budget.
Abe expressed displeasure over NNPC’s behaviour and directed the clerk of the committee to repeat the invitation to the corporation and its departments.
He said, “We invited NNPC to attend this session to brief us on budget; the corporation did not have the decency to acknowledge the letter.
“I am directing the clerk to re-issue another invitation to NNPC, to all the refineries, Department for Petroleum Resources (DPR) and Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC).
“All of them must come individually and they must all bring their budget performance for last year and their budget for this year.
“Every year, we go through this whole problem of dancing around with NNPC because NNPC will never agree to voluntarily bring its budget up for discussion before this committee. The committee will under no circumstances tolerate this kind of disrespect from NNPC; the Constitution is very clear and we all have our constitutional roles and responsibilities.”
“Nobody in this country is above the Constitution; so, there should be a very strong warning to NNPC never to repeat this kind of behaviour to this committee.”
A member of the committee, Senator Danjuma Goje (APC-Gombe Central), also deplored the absence of the NNPC and other agencies under the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
He said the corporation’s absence at this time when some states are experiencing fuel scarcity is disheartening.
Goje added that the committee is legally empowered to monitor the activities and budget performance of the NNPC, and so it should not be disobeyed.
