By Afolabi Samuel Odunayo
On Wednesday, July 3, the Nigerian Senate gave its committees instructions to look into the purported importation of dangerous petroleum products and the dumping of poor diesel into Nigeria.
The investigation was at the instance of a request by a Senator on Wednesday in response to a motion moved by Senator Asuquo Ekpenyong which was deemed to be a matter of urgent public concern.
Following that development, the Senate mandated its ad hoc committee to undertake the following:
“Examine the pre-shipment and pre-discharge standard test parameters, adopted by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority, with a view to uncovering loopholes, if any, exploited to get toxic cargoes into the country;
“Determine the level of compliance of the NPCL’s Direct Sale and Direct Purchase (DSDP) arrangements in line with the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act, including the extent of transparency and accountability in the scheme;
“Beam legislative searchlight on the activities of the Petroleum Equalisation Fund, including payments made to transporters in the last 10 years;
“Enquire from the NPCL the state/ status of the 22 Depots built by the NNPC to eliminate road distribution of petroleum products;
“Engage with stakeholders within the oil and gas industry with a view to identifying possible gaps in regulating and strengthening the surveillance and monitoring structures in place to enable Nigeria to detect violations of best practice standards in the importation of products before they enter into domestic supply chains;
“Also engage with the NNPCL with a view to understanding the extent of its determination and timelines for the start-up of government-funded oil refineries; and
“Investigate how institutions across the importation and distribution chain failed to conduct quality sampling, shipped in products without auditing, port validations by the Nigerian Customs Service; Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR); National Maritime Authority (NMA); and Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON).”
