Retired Army Colonel and current Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Hameed Ali, has disputed the figures emanating from Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited as the daily consumption volume of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) commonly known as petrol.
According to data allegedly supplied by the NNPC to the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, the volume of consumption of PMS per day stands at 60 million litres. But what is rather disturbing is actually figures of 98 million litres posted by the NNPC as daily volume of product pushed out into the market, for which subsidy is calculated and paid.
This revelation gave rise to the outright objection by Customs boss while addressing a question by the House Committee on the Customs effort in tackling the serially reported smuggling of PMS.
The NNPC had blamed the huge amount paid for subsidy on cross-border smuggling of PMS, a scheme the Customs boss described as “non-existing.”
The Committee had been engaging MDAs on the 2023-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework, and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) preparatory to the presentation of the 2023 budget estimates by the President before the joint session of the National Assembly.
Ali, in response to the question of daily consumption volume said if it is assumed that NNPC was correct on the 60 million litres claim, and it supplies 98 million litres daily, questions needed to be answered whether all vehicle owners in Nigeria buy full tank capacities of the product daily.
He also wondered how 38 million litres of PMS, which is the differential between the estimated consumption and the supplied quantity could be smuggled out of country daily since it would require at least 500 high capacity trucks to load.
“If we’re consuming 60 million litres daily, that’s their (NNPC) computation, why do you allow 98 million litres per day? That computation is not even anything to believe, that’s my problem. Let us assume that the actual figure is 98 million litres, and we consume 60 million litres, how many trucks can carry the remaining 38 million litres out daily? These things do not exist”, he said.
Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Saidu Musa Abdullahi, agreed with the Customs CG, saying: “I think as a government, we’re not doing well. That amount of the product means about 500 trucks leaving our shores on a daily basis. We have the NigComsat, but there is never a day it has been reported that our satellite has captured any of them, and we’re paying over six trillion naira for something almost not existing.Monies which should go into social services for the people are being diverted into private pockets. This is not sustainable, and something must be done,” Hon. Abdullahi vowed.
