The House Committee investigating oil theft has insisted that the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPC), the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), and the Nigeria Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) appear before it for probing.
Chairman of the Committee, Alhassan Rurum, announced the decision in Abuja, adding that the heads of NNPC, NIMASA, and NIWA were to appear in person and were not allowed to send representatives.
Rurum said that the heads of all the institutions that were invited should appear in person on September 11, but he raised eyebrows at the situation where the heads of the institutions were invited but did not show up and sent their directors as representatives.
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He said he sent a letter to the committee requesting permission to represent his subordinates as most of the invited CEOs did not want to appear in person and accept the committee’s invitation.
According to him, the commission has the power to subpoena and subpoena individual government officials, including companies entrusted with managing public funds.
During the hearing in Abuja, the Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) and the Nigeria Upstream Regulatory Authority (NUPRA) said that pipelines and flow stations were the main targets of oil thieves.
NMDPRA and NUPRA blamed flawed measurement procedures, faulty equipment and a lack of technology as obstacles to federal agencies’ efforts to combat oil theft.
However, Rurum said the CEOs of the government agencies invited must bring a list of all other agencies operating at export terminals across the country’s oil sector.
