Chairman of the House of Representatives Ad-hoc committee which investigated the management of subsidy in the country, Hon. Farouk Lawan, yesterday assured Nigerians that the report of the committee will be ready and will be presented on the floor of the House next week.
The House adjourned for Easter recess yesterday till April 16.
Brandishing a draft copy of the long awaited report, Lawan said during yesterday plenary session that the delay was caused by the desire of the committee to produce a qualitative report and because the sector was shrouded in so much secrecy that a lot of work had to be done to get the facts straight.
“It was a very challenging task because it was a sector that had been closed for years.? We were confronted with conflicting reports from witnesses at the hearing. We experienced difficulty getting responses from people who appeared before the committee”.
On when Nigerians can get to see the outcome of the long hours of labour, Lawal? said: “The report is almost ready. Hopefully, by next week, the report will be ready for submission to the House. As I speak, we have a draft copy of the report and hope that, over the weekend, we can do a clean-up.”
On his part, the Deputy Speaker, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha accepted the assurances of the chairman, while also stating that the leadership of the House did not interfere with the probe process or the preparation of its report.
The House had on December 8, 2011, mandated an ad-hoc committee led by Hon. Lawan to investigate payments made on subsidy of petrol as part of efforts aimed at ascertaining the reason why the payment burden of the federal government subsidy was rising higher than previous years.
Prior to yesterday’s announcement, Lawan had earlier said that the report would be ready within three weeks, which had elapsed last week.