Emotions run high as Nigeria uncovers $6.8 billion fuel susbsidy fund scam

The probe was prompted by nationwide protests in January when the government tried to remove the fuel subsidy, seen by economists as a massive drain on public finances, but which highlighted public anger about waste and public malfeasance.

President Goodluck Jonathan partly reinstated the subsidy a week later and his administration ordered several probes.

Human Rights Lawyer Eke Uche said the parliament recommendations would curb malpractice by government officials. He said Nigerians have begun to see what kind of effect corruption has on the country and are starting to demand change.

"Nothing is working, our educational system is in rot, our infrastructure base are decaying, we don't have good road networks, our rail system is in a state of comatose because of the atrocious activities of a few Nigerians who have been milking us, milking Nigerians resources at the expense of the 140 million Nigerians," he said

Uche added that there were other more serious concerns which include the role of the country's central bank.

"There are other issues that rose up that are not too palatable for a system that is still growing, a situation where CBN (Central Bank Nigeria) even allowed such ridiculous money to be withdrawn within 24 hours 128 times, according to what the chairman of the committee said yesterday, this are some of the things we are going to address, things must be done the right way way in this nation," he said.

The report gives the most damning evidence against officials at the fuel regulator, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), the state-oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNPC) and the petroleum ministry.

Such was the scale of the fraud and mismanagement that in 2011 the government paid 900 times more in subsidy than it budgeted for - putting into question the actions of the accountant general, finance ministry and even the central bank.

Ordinary Nigerians in Lagos said they were riled by the magnitude of the scam. Others could be seen catching up with news at newspaper stands while others argued over the matter.

Many were sceptic about the parliamentary recommendations saying that until now no senior official has ever been successfully prosecuted for corruption in Nigeria.

"We don't see any genuinity in what they are doing, money has been transferred from government accounts to the (fuel) marketers, some body must be responsible for that, we are not talking about that we are talking about the marketers, someone actually paid that money to the marketers, so we should tackle issues from the root cause not from the surface," said Austin Aniofa, a property consultant in Lagos.

"The previous probes, all the committees set up before by the national assembly, what was the consequence, nothing happened, the same thing is going to happen to this, we will just watch it on TV, the news will carry it, everybody will listen to it, but just give it a week, it's done, that's Nigeria for you," said Abubakar Olorunfemi, a businessman in Lagos.

It was the parliament's strongest report on corruption to date, although it remains to be seen whether any action will be taken.

The missing 6.8 billion US dollars equals roughly a quarter of Nigeria's annual budget for a country in which more than half of inhabitants live below the poverty line.

Parliament's report said the clearest mistake came when PPPRA approved a rapid expansion in the number of companies who could import fuel, from six in 2006 to 140 by 2011.

Many of these firms had no capacity to import fuel and existed simply to sponge subsidy money. Officials at NNPC, PPPRA and the oil ministry either aided the theft or failed to stop it due to incompetence, the report said.

Two American contractors arrived on an NNPC waste management contract but set-up a shop in the capital Abuja as gasoline importers and collected 1.9 billion naira in subsidy, without delivering a drop of fuel.