House Summons Former PPPRA Secretary Over Subsidy Management

ABUJA, January 25, (THEWILL) - The House of Representatives has commenced concrete steps towards the review of the provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.

This is just as its the ad hoc committee on the management of subsidy regime today summoned the immediate past executive secretary of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Mr. Goody Chike Egbuji to appear before it on Thursday.

The House committee on the review of the 1999 Constitution headed by deputy speaker, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha Wednesday issued a call to members of the public to send in memoranda on the alteration of relevant provisions.

Ihedioha urged members of the public in their submissions, to state the proposed sections to be altered, provide justification for the alteration and indicate “how the alteration will promote democracy, federalism, rule of law, national unity, due process, peace, order and good governance in Nigeria.”

He further requested that memoranda be submitted to the Clerk of the Committee not later than 30 days henceforth, and noted that the commencement of the review builds on the previous successful alteration of the Constitution by the Sixth National Assembly.

In another development, while announcing the invitation of the former PPPRA boss at yesterday’s session, Chairman of the subsidy management ad hoc committee, Hon. Farouk Lawan, said Egbuji is wanted to shed light on some of the knotty issues that took place at the agency during his tenure.
He said the committee has made several efforts to get across to Egbuji without success but advised him to honour the committee’s invitation by appearing at 10 am Thursday.

“So many questions have been raised on the running of the PPPRA before the appointment of the new executive secretary. We need the immediate past executive secretary to respond to certain issues that requires his attention; issues that happened under his tenure.”

The current executive secretary, Reginald Stanley took over from Egbuji in November 2011, hence could not provide answers to some of the questions posed by the committee. Egbuji had taken over from Abiodun Ibikunle in 2011 and was replaced by the Engr. Stanley Reginald.