The Network Against Corruption and Trafficking (NACAT) has called for a probe of the budget of the Nigerian Midstream & Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), noting that over the years, the budget has been shredded in secrecy.
The anti-corruption group said that if the National Assembly does not investigate the budget, it will be forced to petition the EFCC for a thorough investigation.
Addressing journalists in Abuja, NACAT executive director of investigation Fejiro Oliver Tega stated that NMDPRA has never made the agency’s budget available to the public.
Tega further said the 2025 budget is over-inflated with frivolities in the name of both local and foreign training, calling on the budget committee to request the CEO and management staff of the agency to appear before the National Assembly in the full glare of Nigerians to defend the budget on the floor of the assembly.
According to him: “Nigerians have never been privy to the breakdown of the budget of NMDPRA and how they spend the resources belonging to us as a nation.
“Under travel and transport with code 22020101, the agency budgeted a staggering sum of N2, 430,240,000 for local travel and transport.
“For international travel and transport, it budgeted N7,105,640,000, which is not only outrageous but very uncharitable to Nigerians who are still suffering from the hardship meted on it by subsidy removal, while few persons waste over N7 billion to fly abroad in the name of training.
“The agency went further to budget another N3,892,608,000 for the same international travel & transport. What is N11 billion doing for international trips of less than 20 persons that will likely be sent there?
“We will also be writing to the EFCC as we did with our petition on former Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa and Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State, where they are facing a probe.”
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