Senate, Reps on collision course over NNPC restructuring

The plan by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachicwu, to restructure the NNPC, Thursdayelicited different reactions from the two chambers of the National Assembly.

While the Senate okayed the restructuring on the basis that no law has been breached, the House of Representatives insisted that it was illegal as long as the law setting up the corporation has not been amended.

According to the Senators, they are satisfied with the measures taken by the minister to restructure the corporation, especially with the fact that no law was breached in the process of carrying out the restructuring.

The Senators however upbraided the minister for not consulting the National Assembly before carrying out the controversial exercise.

Kachikwu was questioned by three standing committees of the Senate on the motive behind the restructuring of the NNPC.

The session, which latter moved into a closed session, was conducted by Senator Tayo Alasoadura, Chairman Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) and Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Senator Jibrin Barau and Chairman, Senate Committee on Gas, Senator Bassey Albert Akpan.

At the end of the closed session, Alasoadura told journalists that they are satisfied with the measures taken by the minister as it is aimed at making units of the NNPC more functional. He also added that the minister has not breached any law in restructuring the NNPC.

Read also: Senate summons Kachikwu over NNPC unbundling

Speaking also, the Senate Chief Whip, Senator Olusola Adeyeye (Osun central) who led the question-and-answer session, said the Act that established the NNPC gave the NNPC management free hand to operate as an entity, adding however that the Act did not give them the power to create autonomous firms that would be independent of the NNPC.

In his contribution, Senator Chukwuka Utazi (Enugu North), asked Kachikwu to go ahead with the far reaching restructuring of the NNPC, adding that NNPC was long overdue for change.

Encouraging the minister not to mind the vested interests in the oil and gas sectors who were working to compromise necessary changes in the NNPC, Utazi said: “Mr Minister, you must understand the sort of resistance that would come when you want to change things. But you must continue doing what you are doing. Don’t be deterred; don’t be tired of the reforms you are carrying out.  We understand what you are doing. Just go on with what you are doing we are behind you.”

But the chairman of the House Committee on Media and Publicity, Mr. Abdulrazak Namdas, stated that “Mr. Speaker has so far called Mr. President three times to at least bring an executive PIB.

“We have not received the bill or his response, only to hear that the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has unbundled the NNPC into seven units.

“What he has done is not in line with our laws”, Namdas added.

Namdas said the House recognised the powers of the executive to introduce reforms, but clarified that the latter would achieve limited results without following “the due process of law.”

Also, Kachikwu, who insisted that what his ministry did was not unbundling, but restructuring, said it is also not true that the exercise was carried out without the approval of a board and the Federal Executive Council, as stated in the Act, adding that the approval process began long ago. He said the real chairman of the NNPC Board is the Minister of Petroleum.

 

 

 

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