The House of Representatives will hold an emergency session this morning over the $620,000 bribery allegations against chairman of the House committee on subsidy probe Rep. Farouk Lawan (PDP, Kano).
According to a source, the House will institute a fresh probe of Zenon Oil and Gas owned by business mogul, Femi Otedola who admitted to bribing Farouk in what he called ‘a sting operation’ involving security agencies.
The source said, a new ad-hoc committee would be empanelled by Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal to take over the mandate from Farouk’s committee and that the bribery allegation will also be referred to the House standing committee on Ethics and Privileges for investigation.
Zenon was initially indicted by the panel on subsidy payments but during consideration of the report, the House exonerated the company, saying Zenon never participated in the Petroleum Support Scheme (PSF) when Rep Farouk raised the matter.
However, the House indicted Zenon and AP on the two other infractions of illegally collecting Forex worth $232 million from the CBN in the name of fuel importation which was never done. Also, AP was said to have imported 38 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) in 2009 which also was said to have been diverted to other countries in a “round tripping” action which characterised fraud in the subsidy regime.
Daily Trust source therefore said: “While we subject Lawan to scrutiny by the Ethics and Privileges committee, it is also very important for us to ascertain the truth and level of involvement of Zenon and other companies at the centre of these allegations to further investigations in order to know what really transpired. The House will not condone any act of corruption and fraud.”
The House cut short its holiday to hold today’s’ emergency session in order to discuss the bribery allegations levelled against members of the House committee on fuel subsidy probe.
Otedola had admitted to giving $600,000 bribe to Farouk in the wake of submission of the report. Farouk, however, denied the allegations in a statement on Sunday but on Monday said he collected the money as evidence to be tendered to the House.
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