 Welcome back. It's still the breakfast and plus TV Africa the Nigerian House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating all subsidy payments the nation has made between 2013 and 2022. Yesterday summoned the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Mrs. Zainab Ahmed to appear before it with all records of subsidy payments the federal government has made within the period under review. Committee Chairman Ibrahim and Leo Yish of the summons when the Director of Home Finance in the Ministry, the Federal Ministry of Finance appeared before the committee. The minister said the the Chairman rather said the minister ought to furnish the committee with details of all public funds used for subsidy payments on failing legally on the 16th of August 2020 to the lawmaker who insisted that the investigation was not aimed at witch hunting anybody said quote this committee requested from you to know the total amount released from the consolidated revenue account as subsidy payments from January 2013 to date. So what exactly is this or where exactly is this headed as far as the probe is concerned. We have joining us this morning to provide analysis of this public affairs analyst Ambrose Bokeh who joins us via Zoom from Inugu. Good morning to you Ambrose Bokeh. Thanks for your time. Thank you for having me. Good morning. Why is the National Assembly in particular the House of Representatives interested in in knowing what exactly has been going on as far as subsidy payments are concerned? Before I answer directly I would like to make a background. What is subsidy? Subsidy in the Petroleum Center simply means that government are filled to refine crude oil in Nigeria. Therefore they take crude oil for the past 30 years, take it to outside the cultures of this country, pay refineries over there in other countries, create employment for other people and then re-import the fuel as refined products. Because of the foreign exchange between what Nigeria should buy the local product that they re-imported and what is going on in the international market, the federal government says that Nigerians are not supposed to be paying buy a petroleum produce with international market price because it was the government that filled the people. The subsidy was now supposed to subsidize the people who are importing the company that are importing the fuel so that there can be a kind of parity into what Nigerians are paying and what is a terrible international market so that the importers would not lose. That was what subsidy is supposed to do for us as a country so that we can buy fuel cheaply at the end use points. But over the years what has been happening was that there have been a lot of scams associated with poor subsidy. During the last 10 years between 1999 to 2007 he brought up the issue of deregulation. But how can you deregulate the sector when local refineries are not working? Therefore the deregulation failed. After some time they were able to get the deregulation from the diesel level but at the petrol level it still remains it was not able to deregulate because you cannot deregulate when local refineries are not functioning. So what has now happened are the subsequent governments have used their companies, paid subsidies to companies, some of them don't even import petroleum products. So they pay their cronies and they share this money most of the time. So for over some time now they are not relieving the subsidy in the race sense of it. So in 2014 one of the campaign themes of the APC was that subsidy was a scam and that they are going to stop subsidy when it comes into power. Seven years down the line that has not happened and then that shows that there is something opaque about subsidy. Now let us go to the House of Preps. The House of Preps has shown itself as a committee that always backs but cannot back. It has also showed itself that most of the time when it tries to solve issues like this it gets it's more complicated. Let's talk of the issue of the IPP, National Integrated Power Project that the House of Preps at one time interrogated and investigated. It ended up in scam. So many other things like that. So the House of Preps have not really redeemed itself before the Nigerian citizens. Therefore they are disrespected by the people they invite. So I heard the minister did not come. They have also invited some other agencies that did not come because at the back things happen and people are not comfortable appearing before them. So they should clean up their house first, restore their integrity and make sure that they are believable and that they are well respected. That is where only people would respect them. So what is happening now is another charade by both the House of Preps and the ministry. The subsidy regime in Nigeria is shrouded in secrecy and is highly complicated. So this is another show to distract Nigerians. It's not going to come out in any way positive. Well you have said that the lawmakers have lost their respect and maybe to them this is also another way to gain some kind of respect. But looking at the subsidy query that's been put out, let's look at it as it is. January 2013 to date that's 2022. Do you think that this is even possible in terms of record keeping and transparency in the system? Is it possible for the minister of finance to have all of these records or the ministry, however, to have all of these records very handy? We are not running the Panana Republic. We are running the Federal Republic of Nigeria and there are structures, organs, ministries, departments and agencies that run this country for us. We should have records of 1960s something without books. We should write records of the 70s, 80s, 90s. So the ministry of finance should have the records because the minister of finance has been a continuum since Nigeria got independence. So the records should be there and anybody who wants to cannot provide the records has a question to answer. But the answer, perhaps, should not even go this way by inviting people telling them to provide the receipt and the record. They should go in partnership with the judiciary and issue some kind of judicial pronouncement to ensure all even employees on financial forensic experts to process and to get out all these information they are asking for. A detailed forensic report of the ministry. So that when the minister or the ministry come into the house, they have questions to ask and they have answers to provide. But this case you just do for the show, for media, you just announce, come show us receipt. They chose some banters. They chose some arguments. We have seen it all over many times and then they go. We suddenly die in a silent mood. Nobody hears anything again. That is not to run the country. So the house of birth should spell this drama. If they are really serious about it, there are audits, there are accounting firms, both local and international, the country and financial forensic analysis of what has happened from that day, 2013 to now. They cannot get it done. They should get the judiciary to do the pronouncement and set up a forensic panel to do that. Beyond the subsidy query, do you think that the minister of petroleum should also answer some questions as regard the activities that's going on in the ministry? The house of birth is concerned about the financial aspect of it. It is led for the ministry to now say, oh, the petroleum ministry ensures that the code is allocated and ensures that our alliance or joint venture business with the international corporations are going on well and ensure that we meet our OPEC quarter and ensure that we do the business. But people collect the money, it's supposed to be the finance ministry and if they have not been doing that, they should also erase some alarm. So it is when the ministry says that the ministry, minister of finance, if they complain that the minister of petroleum resources has not done their own part, that is where they cannot be invited. But for now they are interested in how much has been remitted or how much has been paid out of subsidy between these years, 2013 to now, and what have we, that is almost like nine years. What are the equitable influence? How did you spend it? What were the outflows? I think that's what they are interested in for now. And I think from there, if the petroleum ministry has the question to answer, they cannot call them in. But you're saying that that should be dependent on the report or consent of the ministry. And so one would be saying, is it possible that the ministry would like to report their short comments or their shortfall as it is? We constantly have had that, OPEC has constantly said that we have not been able to meet our quota every other time. And so where's the oversight function? Should we wait for the ministry to invite the minister or to complain before the minister has been summoned? Who is the president? The first point of course not to invite the minister, like the ministry of finance or ministry of petroleum. They are supposed to first of all do work because of investigation. I mean, if you watch the haps, if you watch the cements in the United States or brick or house of notes or whatever in the British, there's the grill dynamic stars. You will see that these people have done some work. We have to do some background work. Well, to dig out some certain information, we need to know everything first of all from the ministry. What this transaction I asked them from 2013 to now, the house of parents are supposed to have it from independent sources. And that's what I talk about the forensic audit. Confineration in SBAS. I let them first of all do their work, present the report. When you are not up to that report, it's right when you now come and invite the minister of finance to ask some questions on issues and then invite the minister on the petroleum. But now you want to be dependent on the evidence that the minister of finance will be giving you. Do you expect the minister of finance to in that case? So that's what I say that it's not it's not serious. It's just a show again. I think we're proud of this kind of shows. There have been, you know, questions about Nigeria's daily petrol consumption. I mean, if you look at the figures from April, 2022, it was as high as 74 million liters per day. If we go to 2021, it had a record high of 93 million liters per day. Do you suspect, sir, that we have some sort of hunky-punky going on that the figures are not correct or there is some sort of discrepancy? Because I remember when the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, some time last year, you know, attempted to remove a petro subsidy and there were, you know, protests or attempted protests, you know, people against it in the media. Before we suspended for 18 months, the Senate president went, Ahmed Lawan, went to visit Mr. Buhari at Asuvila, had a meeting with him, came out, spoke to the press and said that he is not sure we spend that amount of fuel in a day, 93 million, as of last year. And do you suspect that these figures may not be correct? Well, there have been subsidy investigations in the past. We have some components were indicted. What has happened to those components? There are really big data that are indicted with subsidies kind of system, national assembly, projects. What has become of that? Well, that is what we are talking about. The government already knows that there are issues in terms of correct data in the petroleum sector. And that is why the petroleum industry deal, they have been forced to remedy the situation. But it has not been working because nobody has been in, I would say, the scapegoat of it. So if we keep on doing the same thing, we don't expect different results. What we have had over the years, and the issue of also above one cream, we are doing so much output. What is it for me to the government call us? What are we, what's even the exploration of oil itself? How much is being declared? Does the government even know what actual amount of petroleum products we get? So these things, because there are, there is a lot of problems with them. So these things happen. And until we really wake up as a country, as in this time around, we remain business. Can't let it be clear that petroleum, the total deregulation of the sector, cannot work if there are no local refineries working. If you don't add up, there's not an economist can tell me that it's simple economics, simple, refer your product locally. Is there some element of fright in what's going on as well? I'd like to speak to the role of the NMPC in all of this, the NMPC in all of this, because of course, when the president said, okay, we're not, we're not going to scrap the subsidy as planned, rather we'll continue to extend for 18 months, military, then group manager director of NMPC, which is now an NMPC limited, so as a CEO, went to the president with a bill and said, this is how much it's going to cost you for us to get the petrol on the subsidized rate. So what is the NMPC's role in all of this? Because there's a lot shrouded in secrecy. That's number one. Number two, and you know, what can you say about the fact that Nigeria's petrol subsidy in the past six months to July 2022 has surpassed NMPC's oil revenue by 210 billion Naira? Well, that's something that's wrong, okay, because you have subsidized it in the picture that you are bringing out. So how can the cost of what you're bought out, the cost of what you're using to subsidize what you bought out, more than the cost of what you bought out? That's something that's happening. And I want to do something very clear. The federal government of Nigeria is not a limited ability for winning, and it's not a capitalist venture. The primary responsibility of the federal government of Nigeria is subsidizing of black subsidies and one part of the subsidy. Therefore, anything the government is doing in one part of the subsidy is considered first and foremost. And in the tutorial, for capitalists and taking over the sector, and they're trying to oppose the government to do the regulation of all the sector and scrap subsidies. That is voodoo economics. Before you start subsidy, there are some certain things you must put in place. So subsidy is not the problem. All around the world, the biggest economies of the world subsidize their citizens. America's people subsidize a lot in their farmers, in technology. In fact, there's a trade war always going on between America and China, in terms of international trade, in subsidies that give to their citizens, their businessmen. Now, these are countries that are doing well. Why we don't have come here to tell us that the natural resources we have are significant. We are told to define it is the duty of going to refine it locally. And then you say to refine it, at the same time, you say they want to move subsidy. It cannot happen. Let them fix the refineries or develop the sector, make it business friendly so that individuals can come and buy the refineries. When we are now refining locally, the costs will come down. And then nobody will move fucking about subsidy. So we say subsidy is a systematic treatment. It's not a root cause treatment. The root cause, when you have private business, but I know that you don't want to let them talk. And then when we are talking about working, then nobody will look at the subsidy when they are immatural either. But then you take it out to refine and break it. And then you move the subsidy with a field. Just before we call it a wrap down. How we talk about this, let the government manage the subsidy in a transparent and accountable manner. The company about the word government subsidize. The good thing here is that it's not managed with an accountability. Well, the point is, what makes you look for a way to manage the bundle with a level of aspiration accountability? Ambrose, let's quickly look at this. You had mentioned, because I have been very concerned about 2013 to 2022. That's not because it's impossible to have all of these records. But we understand the climb that we're in and every order time you hear that there might just be a fire incident and what have you. But following all of this investigation that's going on, the CSC is also telling the reps that they have no records of 23 oil companies following this investigation. So they have said to the reps that they have no records of 23 oil companies that all of this transaction have gone to. And I'm asking how viable is this? And you say that it's possible that we don't leave in the banana republic who are in 21st century. And of course, this is Nigeria, we should have records. What do you make of all of this? And do you think that this is even going to be a thing? Is it going to be real? Is there anywhere that there's a record somewhere? Well, I think the House of Reps, since the corporate affairs commissioner said they don't have, I don't usually point to a pensioner and arrest those who are talking about the kind of investment. Why would I tell you? Are the companies not registered? Are they selling the companies that are starting a lawsuit a month from what they're not registered? Do you mean that I'm not in any tax, good company tax and the IPI tax? So that is a story for children. That's usually, arrest whoever is sent that kind of statement, maybe the head of the CSC. And that was the result. Arrest the directors of such companies. They have records. So please, let's not pull ourselves apart if these are dramatic statements. We say let's not enjoy it. Well, we have to thank Reps, the House of Reps, and by Sergio Sugung, of the PDP and those state for raising this motion and moving this motion to investigate subsidy payments by NMPC. Some of the facts and the figures put out are quite, quite scary and damning if they are proven true. It means we have about $10 billion of the nation's oil revenue being flowing into private pockets. We'll see how this pans out. Ambrose Bokeh, thank you very much for your time this morning. Well, that's the size of it. Well, thank you so much. We appreciate your time. Thank you for being part of the show. That's the size of it this morning on our first conversation. When we return, it will be time for us to be looking at, you know, points of skim and the fact that stakeholders are warning Nigerians against all of these institutions that have disguised themselves. Please stay with us.