The induction, MRA said,
only serves to heighten questions about its continued relevance in light of its
failure to achieve the objectives for which it was established.
The Board was
established in 1975 by Decree No. 9 of 1975, which was later amended in 1989 by
Decree No. 32 of 1989, to offset the inequality in the transportation cost of
distributing petroleum products in different parts of Nigeria in order for the
Government to be able maintain a uniform pricing system for such products all
over the country.
The primary responsibility
of the Board is to reimburse petroleum marketing companies for any losses
suffered by them, solely and exclusively, as a result of their selling
petroleum products at uniform prices throughout the country.
The mandate of the Board
is therefore to ensure that the Uniform Pricing Mechanism that the Federal
Government introduced during the period worked effectively throughout Nigeria
and that each marketing company complied with the laws regarding the management
of the transportation equalisation process.
In a statement in Lagos,
MRA’s Legal Officer, Ms Chioma Nwaodike, noted that “More than 40 years after
the Board was established, it is clear that it has failed to deliver on the
objectives that motivated its establishment, given that the pricing of petroleum
products has never been uniform across the country all through these years.
Perhaps, some transparency about the activities of the Board may have enabled
us to understand what exactly it does and whether there is any reason for its
continued existence in light of its apparent spectacular failure.”
According to Ms
Nwaodike, “having been charged with the responsibility for reimbursing
petroleum marketing companies for losses suffered by them as a result of their
sale of petroleum products at uniform prices throughout the country, for which
it is expending public funds in this regard, the Board owes Nigerians a duty to
keep them informed about every aspect of its operations including what it gets
annually from the national budget, how much it is expending for various
purposes, who the beneficiaries of its reimbursement scheme are, how the
reimbursements are calculated, among other things. Unfortunately, it is not
doing this.”
She accused the Board of
flouting and rendering meaningless its mission statements to its various
stakeholders, including its statement to marketers “to be a prime and
transparent organization, for the timely reimbursement of marketers’
transportation claims” as well as its statement to Nigerians to be “a
responsible, accountable and efficient parastatal facilitating the distribution
of petroleum products nationwide at approved prices”.
Ms Nwaodike said by
brazenly neglecting to comply with its statutory obligations under the FOI Act,
the Board makes nonsense of its mission statement where it says it aims to be a
“transparent organization” and an “accountable and efficient parastatal” as
well as listing ‘integrity’ as one of its core values.
She observed that by
consistently failing over the past seven years to comply with its proactive publication
obligations in Section 2 (3), (4) and (5) of the FOI Act to publish and
disseminate 16 classes of information as well as review and update them
whenever changes occur, the Board is demonstrating its clear disdain for the
laws of the land, the ideals of democracy, and the core values it claims guide
its operations.
According to her,
“although the Board has published information that can best be described as
innocuous, it however failed to publish some vital information that the Act
requires it to proactively publish and disseminate including, but not limited
to, documents containing information relating to the receipt or expenditure of
public or other funds of the institution; documents containing the names,
salaries, titles and dates of employment of all employees and officers of the
institution; and a list of files containing applications for any contract,
permit, grants, licenses or agreements, etc.”
Ms Nwaodike noted that
the Board has also refused to submit to the Attorney-General of the Federation
any report on its implementation of the Act for seven consecutive years, in
clear defiance of Section 29 (1) and (2) of the FOI Act and the Guidelines on
the Implementation of the Freedom of Information Act, 2011 issued by the
Attorney General of the Federation, the oversight agency for the FOI Act, as
the Board has neither submitted any report nor made any such report available
to the public in any form whatsoever.
She also accused the
Board of not providing appropriate training for its officials on the public’s
right of access to information and for the effective implementation of the Act
at any time in all the seven years that the law has been in operation, as it is
required to do under Section 13 of the FOI Act.
Noting that there is no
single reference to the FOI Act on the Board’s website, Ms Nwaodike observed
that the Board has acted over the last seven years as if the Law does not exist
and continued to conduct its functions and operations in cult-like secrecy.
Chuks Egbune/GEE
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