The
Senate has summoned the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi,
Minister of state for petroleum, Timipre Sylva and the Group Managing Director
of NNPC, Mele Kyari to appear before Senate Committee on local content,
Downstream petroleum and legislative compliance after the 7 weeks recess of the
Senate.
This
was disclosed by the Senator representing Oyo Central at the National Assembly,
Oloye Teslim Folarin, on Sunday.
Folarin,
a chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Senate
Leader, maintained that the Senate Committee on local content, Downstream
petroleum and legislative compliance on Thursday resolved to invite the trio
based on the issue of waivers in the maritime industry.
He
noted that the Senate is worried that foreign vessels have reportedly taken
over the jobs of local vessels owners in the maritime industry as a result of
waivers adding that the decision to summon them is sequel to the Senate
Investigative hearing of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency
(NIMASA).
Folarin
said the Senators observed that the minister of Transportation is responsible
for the issuance of waivers under the Act.
“There
are areas under the Act, where the minister is responsible, for instance the
issuance of waivers, that has nothing to do with the Director General of
NIMASA. So there is no point asking the Director General,” he said.
He
explained that a lot of questions will go to the minister.
Folarin
added that the Director General of NIMASA is more of operational officer.
“When
we resume, the GMD of NNPC will also be invited. He wanted to come today but…
so when we resume in September, the GMD NNPC and the minister of state for
petroleum will also come.
“Because
those are the two major players in our maritme industry. NIMASA and NNPC. NNPC
is 70 percent, so there are a lot of grey areas that they need to shed light
on. And you see the significance of this investigative hearing is not to
witch-hunt anybody. We are not doing that. What COVID-19 has done is to destroy
the myth called globalization, because you can see every country is for
himself.
“So
this tells us that we must begin to look inwards, a lot of money we want to
retain it in the country and that is all about it and I think is the right
thing to do.
“The
Act was enacted in 2003, so what we are trying to do is to review the progress
so far from 2003 till date, so if we don’t have enough Nigeria participation in
the sector, what it means is that the Act is not working well. Because the Act
was specifically enacted to look after the Nigerian interest.
“The
NIMASA DG submitted his documents this morning and there is no way we would
have gone through all these documents, but when we quickly went through, we saw
some inconsistencies, for instance the names of foreign vessels are also the
same names as the local vessels. So we need to find out, may be it was an error
in his office.
“Nigeria
under the local content Act, our people should have first option but rather
than us having first option, it appears we are now taking the back seat, so we
are now saying look we should be in the front seat and if we now need more
vessels then the foreigners can then be given waivers. But a case where our
people are now behind and have no hope is clearly unacceptable. I don’t want to
preempt what the minister will say but almost certainly, from my experience of
the system, a lot of the issues are institutional,” he stated.
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