•Petroleum minister accused of spending N2bn on private jets in two years.

punch: This is weighty; EFCC should clear the air If the report that a Minister of the
Federal Republic spent a staggering
N2billion on private jet rentals in two
years is true, then, it merely confirms
the pervasive profligacy in
government. According to the Crusader For Good Governance, a
non-governmental organisation that
blew the whistle, the petroleum
minister, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke,
spent the amount on her numerous
overseas trips in the last two years. The NGO, in a petition sent to the
Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC), alleged, among
others, that the minister rejected a
commercial flight when President
Goodluck Jonathan visited China a few months ago and instead paid $
300,000 to go to the Asian country. According to the petitioners, “her
frequent trips to meetings of the
Organisation of Oil Producing and
Exporting Countries, OPEC, in Vienna,
Austria, have been through private
jets.” “The same happened during Mr. President’s trip to South Africa; she
also travelled in a private jet at the cost
of $300,000.00.” She was accused of
spending the same amount on her trip
to South Africa when the president
also went there. In the petition, the minister was said to have travelled in a
private jet to Dubai during the last
Easter Break with members of her
family at the cost of $300,000.00, even
as the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) was alleged to be maintaining a private jet, Challenger
850 Visa Jet at $500,000.00 monthly
for the minister. Perhaps the most ridiculous of the
allegations, according to the
petitioner, is that “Worse of all, even
when Mr. President is travelling and
the use of Presidential jet is
guaranteed, the Minister of Petroleum never makes use of such cost-saving
measures”. We find all these incredible against the
usual impression given by the
government that the country cannot
afford certain essentials due to paucity
of funds. For instance, the Academic
Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been on strike for almost two months,
thereby grounding academic and
other activities on our university
campuses. We are concerned like most other
Nigerians, especially if this kind of
frivolous spending could be going on
in government. Before the ASUU strike,
lecturers in the polytechnics were also
on strike for months. There are so many other things begging for
attention in the country that the
government has not done, always
pleading poverty. Schools are in a
shambles; healthcare has deteriorated
as many Nigerians, especially those with the means travel out for medical
check-up, the transportation sector is
in chaos for the same reason. The state
of infrastructure generally is nothing
to write home about. Yet, we see
financial recklessness in governments while the vast majority of Nigerians
live in abject poverty. From the petition signed by
Okechukwu Obiora, the petitioners
appeared to have done some
spadework on the matter as they
claimed that the relevant agencies in
the aviation sector, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigerian
Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and
Nigerian Airspace Management
Agency (NAMA) all confirmed that the
minister has never flown commercial
aircraft in the last two years. All the agencies are government owned; it
therefore should not be difficult for the
commission to get the necessary
information from them. Without doubt, these are weighty
allegations; nonetheless, we want to
see them merely as that – allegations –
until proven otherwise. But then, this
is a matter that Nigerians are
interested in, and justifiably so. The EFCC therefore owes Nigerians an
obligation to say whether it had
received the petition or not. If it had, it
should so tell the people and as well
let them into what it is doing about it.
This is not the kind of issue that should be allowed to gather dust in
shelves or be swept under the carpet

Source:Punch