appointing minister!
President Muhammadu Buhari is set to
head the
Ministry of Petroleum for 18 months before appointing a substantive
minister for the ministry.
The President said this while meeting with some members of his
political party, the All Progressives Congress, in Abuja recently.
One of those at the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity, on Sunday said that the President said he would use the 18 months of heading the petroleum ministry to reposition it.
According to him,
“At the meeting we had recently, we discussed the issues of
portfolios and other matters,” the President said he was going to
handle the Ministry of Petroleum himself for about 18 months.
“He said it was after this that he would appoint a substantive
minister for the ministry. He said he would only
Personally handle the reorganisation of the much-important ministry.
“Besides, he said the ministry needed to be reformed and be rid
of corruption. He promised to sanitise the ministry.”
It was, however, gathered that the President was thinking of
appointing an experienced person as his special adviser on
petroleum.
The President was once a minister in charge of the
ministry so due to this experience, he was said to have vowed to make sure
that he blocked all the loopholes that enabled stealing of money
or petroleum products.
He plans to split the NNPC in two, creating a regulator and a
vehicle for investments, according to Femi Adesina, a
presidential spokesman.
So far the president has fired the board and management of the company and replaced its Jonathan-appointed chief with
Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, who was executive vice-chariman of
Exxon Mobil Africa. He has also ordered a review of oil-swap
contracts and barred 113 vessels from loading oil and gas,
about 250,000 barrels of Nigerian crude, about 10 percent of the
country’s daily output, are stolen daily, Buhari has said.
Speaking on the issue, the Peoples Democratic Party said it
would be too early to speculate on whether the President would
head the ministry or not.
Rather, the opposition party urged Nigerians to wait till
September when the President promised to name his cabinet.
The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji
Ibrahim Jalo, told our correspondent that he was
only sure that
the President was going to split the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation.
Jalo said, “That Buhari is going to head the ministry is
speculative. But what we know, going by his body language and
actions so far, is that he is going to split the NNPC.
“This is what we know. So, let’s wait and see what he’s going
to do before we make comments.”
However, the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties said the
constitution vested powers on the President to head any
ministry or parastatal of his choice or appoint a representative.
The National Publicity Secretary of the organisation, Mr. Osita
Okechukwu, said that Section 5 of the 1999 Constitution “vested
executive powers on the President.
He said
“He can decide to exercise such powers by himself or delegate
it to his deputy, or public officers of the public service of the
federation. That’s what the law says.
“Whether he chooses to manage any ministry by himself is
immaterial. Whether he decides to be in charge of ministries
such as power, works, women affairs or culture does not mean
anything to the Nigerian people.”
Buhari to head Petroleum Ministry for 18 months!
Punch
No comments:
Post a Comment