Senate summons gas marketing company MD over purchase agreements, others

The Senate has summoned the Managing Director of Nigerian Gas Marketing Company, Justin Ezeala, over gas sales, purchase agreements, pricing with various companies, and non-compliance with due process in the Auto Compressed Natural Gas Project with NIPCO Gas.

The Senate, through its Committee on Gas, requested on Wednesday the details of gas sales and purchase agreements with gas companies.

The committee chaired by Senator Jarigbe Jarigbe issued the summons after a closed-door session with committee members at the National Assembly.

The committee, in its resolutions at the end of the meeting, also expressed dissatisfaction with the decision of the Group Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited Mele Kyari, to prevent the National Assembly Committees from overseeing subsidiaries of NNPCL.

The committee further demanded financial records on the Auto CNG Project with NiPCO, where NNPC Gas Marketing Limited has approved an investment of N30bn.

The Senate had last week met with the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperipe Ekpo, and requested that he provide the committee with important documents from the organisation to allow for proper oversight.

The sitting thereafter fixed Wednesday, November 11, for the next meeting, where the agency will submit proper documents.

The agencies, however, refused to show up or send the required documents.

Expressing his displeasure, Jarigbe said, “It is either we do our work as legislators or continue to panic because we would not be wasting our time leaving other things we are supposed to do, and the MDAs would be making decisions for us.

“The NNPCL is carrying a posture as if it is 100 per cent a private entity, and they don’t have anything to do with the National Assembly and that is their posture and we need to correct this because that is not what is provided for in the Petroleum Industry Act, all the things provided for in the Act including our oversight have all been abandoned and do cherry-picking with whatever is convenient for them.”

The Gas Committee chairman added, “The Escrow frontier acreages have not been opened in line with Section 9 (4).”

The committee, therefore, resolved to use “relevant provisions of the constitution to enforce the appearance of Ezeala, if he failed to honour the invitation of the committee again.”

Punch