A shouting match erupted among members of the House of Representatives on Tuesday as they disagreed over the N61.9bn budget proposed for the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and its parastatals this year.
Trouble started after some members accused the Chairman, House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream), Mr. Ajibola Muraina, of attempting to shield the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, from answering questions on the details of the budget.
Muraina, a Peoples Democratic Party member from Oyo State, had ordered that the details of the budget should be considered behind closed doors ( in secrecy) after the minister had given the highlights in the open.
However, not quite 10 minutes into the secret session, some members were heard shouting and protesting loudly over an alleged bid to shield the minister from talking.
One All Progressives Congress member from Kaduna State, Mr. Bala Yusuf, forced the door open and stormed out of the session.
He kept shouting, “I will speak, I will speak, that is not the way to handle budget issues. Why can’t we ask questions? Why?
A PDP member from Imo State, Mr. Raphael Nnana-Igbokwe, rushed after the APC member, trying to calm him down to no avail.
The closed door session came to an abrupt end as Muraina too went to where Yusuf was standing and fuming. Muriana spoke to him in a hushed tone.
Alison-Madueke, who looked worried, also went to Yusuf and tried to calm him down by making a joke out of the situation.
She went to meet Yusuf in company with the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Andrew Yakubu.
The minister held Yusuf’s hand, asking, “Hon. What is your question? What is your question? Tell me, I will answer you.”
When she saw that the lawmaker was not ready to reduce to issue to a joke, Diezani added, “okay, next time, if you shout, I will shout too”, as she continued to smile.
At this point, the GMD attempted to intervene. Yusuf acknowledged him, saying, “This is my elder brother, I respect him.”
They succeeded in calming Yusuf, but the lawmaker later stated that he had already made his point.
Before Muraina called for the controversial closed door session, the minister had informed the committee that her ministry and parastatals had a budget of N61.9bn this year.
She broke the figure down into N53.8bn for personnel cost; N1.8bn for overhead cost; and N6.2bn for capital projects.
Alison-Madueke, who claimed that the ministry was facing funding challenges, told the committee that N4.3bn of the N8.5bn budgeted for capital project in 2013 was released by the Ministry of Finance.
But, she said the ministry could only utilise N3.8bn of the N4.3bn, an indication that over N500million was returned to the treasury.
As for the the N50.4bn and N1.8bn budgeted for personnel cost and overhead cost respectively in 2013, the minister said the sub-heads were implemented “100 per cent.”
Meanwhile, the committee reviewed the scarcity of petroleum products, especially petrol, in the country and directed Alison-Madueke to use “magic” to end it.
The meeting was a joint session of the committees on Petroleum Resources, Upstream/Downstream and Gas Resources.
On petrol scarcity, Muraina said, “There was the magic that you used sometime ago to stop scarcity. Go back to the magic and ensure that products flow freely.
“We saw the GMD trying to cover up by visiting some filling stations, but the truth is that there is scarcity.”
When journalists confronted Alison-Madueke with questions as she exited the venue of the meeting, the minister insisted that the scarcity was caused by “diversion and hoarding.”
She stated that the ministry was working hard to resolve the problem by investigating it.
She said the situation in Lagos had normalised following the intervention of the ministry and the NNPC.
The minister added that she was turning serious attention to Abuja where the scarcity had persisted in spite of raising the daily truck out of products to the city.
An NNPC source claimed on Tuesday that the daily truck out was increased from 100 to 150 lately in efforts to end the scarcity without success.
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