{"id":1086,"date":"2013-03-28T04:38:50","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T04:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disnaija.com\/nigerian-newspapers\/reps-probe-nnpcs-pipeline-protection-contracts\/"},"modified":"2013-03-28T04:38:50","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T04:38:50","slug":"reps-probe-nnpcs-pipeline-protection-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/reps-probe-nnpcs-pipeline-protection-contracts\/","title":{"rendered":"Reps probe NNPC\u2019s pipeline protection contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The House of Representatives yesterday ordered a probe of the N5.6 billion the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation of Nigeria (NNPC) spends yearly on oil pipeline protection, saying the deal is in violation of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSDC) Act.<\/p>\n

The House gave the directive in a resolution following a motion moved by Robinson Uwak, member reprsenting (PDP-Akwa Ibom), which was adopted without debate.<\/p>\n

The three committees charged with the investigations are those of Petroleum Resources (Upstream); Interior; National Security and Intelligence.<\/p>\n

The report of the investigation is expected to be presented to the House within four weeks.<\/p>\n

Uwak, said the NNPC spends N5.6 billion yearly on the protection of oil pipelines in violation of the NSCDC Act, which empowers the Corps to protect the pipelines.<\/p>\n

Section 3 (1) of the Act, states: \u201cThe Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps shall maintain 24 hours surveillance over infrastructure, sites and projects of the federal, states and local governments;<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NSCDC has powers to arrest without a warrant, detain, investigate and institute legal proceedings against any person who is reasonably suspected to have committed an offence under this Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr is involved in any power transmission lines, or oil pipelines, Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST) cables, equipment, water board pipes and equipment vandalism.\u201d Uwak insisted that the amount of money being spent on pipeline contract could be further invested in the corps.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe huge sums of money spent in servicing the pipeline contract could be invested in funding the NSCDC to enable it carry out its statutory function rather than giving it to a private firm in violation of the law,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

The legislator said that the mobilisation of officers of the corps to locations and operations not covered by its Act violated the provisions of the Act.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) 2013 budget of N259.6 billion has passed second reading at the floor of the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

The budget appropriated N48 billion for personnel costs, while N55.9 billion was for overhead costs and N155.7 billion for capital projects.<\/p>\n

The Chairman of the Committee on FCT, Rep. Emmanuel Jime, (PDP-Benue), said that the budget was critical to the execution of the Abuja Lighter Rail project and completion of some health facilities within the territory.<\/p>\n

He urged members to support the passage of the budget for a second reading.<\/p>\n

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Posted in Nigerian Newspapers. <\/a>A DisNaija.Com<\/a> network.<\/p>\n

Source: The Nation Newspaper<\/p>\n

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