Days Of Corruption In NNPC Are Over, Saraki Vows

Bukola SarakiThe Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki on Tuesday, attributed alleged massive corruption in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to lack of operational budget framework.

He, however, vowed that such era where there was deliberate non-provision of operational budget for the Corporation, is gone for good as the 8th Senate under his leadership will not tolerate that.

The Senate President spoke while receiving members of the Civil Society Situation Room, led by the convener, Mr. Clement Nwankwo, in Abuja.

According to Saraki, transparency and accountability must be brought to bear in all government transactions.

Saraki said: “On the issue of transparency of oversight, which you raised here, we will work very hard to see the areas where there can be improvement on our part.

“The budget process which you talked about, I want to tell you that some of us have strong views that issues of budget must be transparent, particularly, the days are gone where agencies like the NNPC would be able to function without operational budget.

“We must move away from because one of the key issues that we have now is the issue of revenue leakages because of lack of transparency, I think we must move away from that, especially agencies that have revenue coming in”.

Saraki said the 8th Senate will work to prevent revenue leakages in the country.

He added that the red chamber will reintroduce the Constitution Amendment Bill, which was not signed by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan.

Other Bills to receive priority attention on resumption of the Senate, according to Saraki, include the Petroleum Industry Bill and the Electoral Act.

Mr. Saraki pointed out that the Senate under his leadership would focus on people-orineted legislation that would safeguard the interest and welfare of Nigerians.

Earlier, Nwankwo said his group visited to seek partnership in the governance process of the country.

He solicited the support and partnership of the National Assembly while highlighting areas of cogent interest, such as bills on People living with disability; Electoral Acts (as amended); PIB and the Constitutional Amendment, which he prayed the Senate to ensure its effective implementation.

Nwankwo promised to work with the National Assembly to evolve issue-based legislations.

2 COMMENTS

  1. The plain fact is that if this proclamation were true, the PIB would have been passed a long time ago. Diezani Alison-Madueke tried for her whole term to reform the NNPC, and time after time she was met with pushback from reps and senators. WE WERE EVEN PROMISED THIS SAME THING BEFORE THE END OF THE LAST ASSEMBLY! AND ALL THEY DID WAS ADMONISH THE MINISTER! So don’t expect Nigerians to listen to these promises YET AGAIN.

    Pass the PIB. Show your commitment to transparency and accountability. Until then, we will continue to believe that all but a few of our leaders actually care about reform.