* Fuel subsidy corruption cost $6.8 billion in 3 years
* Report recommends petrol price regulator be indicted
* Marketers collected fuel subsidy but never delivered
By Camillus Eboh
ABUJA, April 25 (Reuters) – Nigeria’s lower house of
parliament approved a report on Wednesday recommending senior
officials be prosecuted for their part in the corrupt fuel
subsidy scheme that lawmakers said cost the country $6.8 billion
over three years.
The probe was prompted by nationwide protests in January
when the government tried to remove the fuel subsidy, seen by
economists as a massive drain on public finances, but which
highlighted public anger about waste and public malfeasance.
President Goodluck Jonathan partly reinstated the subsidy a
week later and his administration ordered several probes.
The parliamentary investigation covering 2009 to 2011 found
that petrol marketers, including state-owned NNPC, were taking
subsidy payments for fuel that did not exist or was sold abroad
– siphoning billions of dollars meant to ease the pain of high
fuel prices into the pockets of corrupt officials and
businessmen.
“Nigerians have been suffering under the deceit of a select
few that has milked us all dry in the name of fuel subsidy,”
Lawan Farouk, head of the committee that carried out the probe,
said.
Continued…
