Subsidy Removal: Kolade’s Committee Illegal – SAN

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mallam Yahaya Mahmood, yesterday, described the Dr Christopher Kolade- led Committee on Subsidy Reinvestment Empowerment Programme Board as illegal and unconstitutional.

President Goodluck Jonathan had yesterday appointed? Kolade as the Chairman of the Board with? Major-General Mamman Kontagora (rtd) as the deputy chairman.

According to Jonathan, the mandate of the board shall be to oversee the Fund in the petroleum subsidy savings account and the programme specifically is to improve the quality of life of Nigerians in line with the Transformation Agenda of the present administration.

But Mahmood in a telephone interview with LEADERSHIP, yesterday,? claimed that since the committee was not constituted at the instance of an Act of the National Assembly, the body was in conflict with the 1999 constitution.

He said, “It was easy, proper and appropriate for the late Military Head of State, Gen Sani Abacha to set up the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF). But the situation is different at present”.

The Senior Advocate rhetorically put up some posers; “Will the money to be spent by the committee be appropriated? Will the projects to be executed by the committee be part of the projects in the budget? Will the projects be approved by the president?