There was a mild drama as Chairman of the Senate committee on Petroleum, Senator Kabir Marafa (APC, Zamfara) asked Kachikwu and Baru not to respond to questions raised on whether subsidy is being paid or not.
This was during an investigative hearing by the National Assembly yesterday.
First to raise the question was Senator Bassy Albert Akpan (PDP, Akwa Ibom) when he queried the Petroleum stakeholders on how the N26 differential in the landing cost N171 and N145 approved price.
Marafa, interjected saying, “the essence of this meeting is not about whether there is subsidy or not. I don’t want us to go into the issue.”
The issue was also raised by Senator Philip Aduda (PDP, FCT) when he demanded for explanation on it, he says: “if we are paying subsidy let us know.” But again, Marafa quickly interjected saying that a new date would be fixed for the hearing on subsidy.
Recall that Marafa had during a press briefing ahead of the investigative hearing said among the issues to be discussed was subsidy.
Marafa had on Friday said: “Part of what we are going to ask is the issue of subsidy: We were told that there is subsidy, if there is, who approved it ? We are the only one that can appropriate money. If you do that without our approval, you have breached the Constitution of the country.”
