The
organised Labour on Thursday called on the Federal Government to
institute an urgent probe into the revelations by the Nuhu Ribadu
Committee that $183m signature bonuses from seven discretionary oil
licences awarded by petroleum ministers between 2008 and 2011 was
missing.
The two labour centres in the country, the Nigeria
Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress, on Thursday demanded that
the FG must ensure that those behind the latest incident of corruption
and theft of public funds be fished out for prosecution without delay.
The NLC and the TUC called on the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission, the Independent Corrupt Practices and other
Related Offences Commission and related security agencies to wade into
the matter to ensure the money was recovered from those involved in the
missing funds saga.
The president of the TUC, Mr. Peter Esele, said that
while the ministers of petroleum in Nigeria remained the most powerful
in the world, regulatory institutions were rather too weak in the
country.
He said that the situation had made the ministers of
petroleum to do whatever they wanted, including allocation of oil blocs
and others.
He urged the National Assembly to whittle down the
powers given to the Minister of Petroleum in the Petroleum Industry Bill
now awaiting legislative action.
Esele urged the EFCC and related agencies to pick up the issue and ensure that the funds involved were recovered.
He said, “The Ribadu committee is a fall out of the
anti-fuel price increase demonstrations in January; the committee is one
of the benefits.
“What this has shown is that our regulatory
authorities are too weak. The Minister of Petroleum is the most powerful
minister in the whole world.”
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