Who owns SURE-P? That is the question raised
following the claim by the Senate that N500
billion SURE-P fund was missing. The Minister
of Finance, Budget Office and the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have
all washed their hands of the programme
initiated to utilise savings from the partial
removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit
(PMS) in 2012. Nduka Chiejina reports.
One of the agenda of the Federal Government is
the progressive deregulation of the petroleum
industry, which gave birth to the Subsidy
Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme
(SURE-P). It was established January last year
by President Goodluck Jonathan after the
subsidy from Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) was
partially removed.
The Occupy Nigeria protest took centre stage
to protest the hike in pump price of fuel from
N65 to over N141, before it was reduced to
N97, after negotiation between the Organised
Labour and the Federal Government.
The SURE-P was set up as an interventionist
committee to manage the proceeds from fuel
subsidy removal. It is funded with the difference
or the savings which would have used to
subsidise PMS had there been full subsidy for
the product. By implication, the difference
between N65 per litre cost of PMS as full
subsidy and N97 the price of PMS from partial
withdrawal of subsidy is what the government
uses to fund SURE-P. The money thus saved is
shared among the three tiers of government.
In order to ensure the proper management of
the funds that would accrue to the Federal
Government from the partial withdrawal of
subsidy, the government decided to inaugurate
a committee for the purpose.
Accordingly, the President set up the SURE-P
Committee, with Dr. Christopher Kolade as
Chairman.
The mandate from the President to the SURE-P
Committee is to ‘deliver service with integrity’
and ‘restore people’s confidence in the
government’. The terms of reference are as
follows: Determine in liaison with the Ministry of
Finance and Ministry of Petroleum Resources,
the subsidy savings estimates for each
preceding month and ensure that such funds
are transferred to the Funds’ Special Account
with the Central Bank of Nigeria; approve the
annual work plans and cash budgets of the
various Project Implementation Units (PlUs)
within the Ministries, Departments and
Agencies (MDAs) and ensure orderly
disbursement of funds by the PlUs in order to
certify and execute projects; monitor and
evaluate execution of the funded projects,
including periodic Poverty and Social lmpact
Analysis (PSIA); update the President regularly
on the programme; Periodically brief the
Federal Executive Council (FEC) on the
progress of the programme; appoint Consulting
firms with international reputation to provide
technical assistance to the Committee in
financial and project management; appoint
external auditors for the fund; and do such
other things as are necessary or incidental to
the objectives of the Fund or as maybe
assigned by the Federal Government.
The Committee is supported by a Secretariat
that will also be responsible for communication
and press briefings.
Fund Management
SURE-P, in carrying out the set mandate of
reinvesting the Federal Government’s share,
established a fund management structure. In
the structure, the Director-General, Budget
Office of the Federation (Director-General,
Budget Office) is designated as the Accounting
officer for all SURE-P activities. The Account of
the programme is, therefore, domiciled in the
Office of the Director-General, Budget Office of
the Federation.
After the Committee has approved payments for
projects, the Chairman signs the approval, then
the DG Budget Office, as Accounting Officer,
processes the approvals, after which the
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) makes payments
directly to beneficiaries.
Programme Structure
In line with the adopted operational structure,
individual projects are managed by Project
Implementation Units (PIUs) that are located
within Federal Government Ministries,
Departments and Agencies (MDAs). Projects
and programmes oversight are managed by the
SURE-P Committee working through its steering
committee and seven subcommittees. This
aspect of the SURE-P programme structure has
been described as drain pipe of public funds as
it is seen as a duplication of the duties and
functions of MDAs with regards to project
management.
The subcommittees are extensions of the
committee to provide direct supervision to the
projects. The Committee also has a Secretariat
that provides technical and administrative
support to both the Committee and its
subcommittees, and provides information to
stakeholders and the general public.
By the end of November 2012, N62,
423,351,736.58 had been expended on capital
projects; N325,525,292.27 went into the
committee’s running cost (secretariat
services).
The expenditure summary shows that maternal
child health by federal ministry of health gulped
N3,803,152,276.13; public works by FERMA
used N4,000,000,000.00; mass transit by
infrastructure bank, went away with
N8,900,000,000.00; East-West Road by
ministry of Niger Delta equally gulped
N8,148,855,134.04; N28,296,238,063.10 was
spent by federal ministry of Works on roads and
bridges; Railway by federal ministry of
Transport received N9,275,106,263.31 and
N325,525,292.27 was spent on Secretariat
services by SURE-P, bringing the total to
N62,748,877,038.85.
In 2014, N273.14 billion has been budgeted for
extra capital under the SURE-P scheme to
further complement the overall capital outlay in
2014. According to the 2014-2016 Medium
Term Fiscal Expenditure Framework (MTEF)
and the Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF and FSP)
document, “the SURE-P budget is added to the
outlay in the regular budget, the consolidated
expenditure rises to N4.77 trillion, of which the
consolidated capital budget in 2014 is N1.45
trillion (about 30.44 per cent of total
expenditure).”
N35,549,000,000 was shared from the Subsidy
Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme
(SURE-P) by all the tiers of government so far,
and as Nigeria’s gross monthly revenue
continues to dwindle, state governments have
advised the federal government to invest some
of the Subsidy Reinvestment Empowerment
Programme (SURE-P) funds into petrochemical
industries.
The advice was given to the federal government
following what the states called lack of proper
and full harnessing of Nigeria’s resources.
The Senate alleged last week that N500 billions
missing from the SURE-P funds as only
N300billion of the estimated accruals of N800
billion could be accounted for. This is not the
first time SURE-P funds have been declared
missing. The Plateau State House of Assembly
recently said it discovered over N3 billion
unspent SURE-P fund in the state since
January 2012.
The Chairman of the House Ad hoc Committee
on the Subsidy Reinvestment and
Empowerment Programme, Mr Dalyop Mancha,
said the committee discovered that both the
State and Local Governments attracted fund
from the SURE-P since January 2012, which
the two tiers did not disburse to the
beneficiaries.
The state finance commissioner was said to
have told state legislature that “the funds were
intact and that the account have so far
received the sum of over N3 billion arising from
a monthly allocation of N218 million”.
However, no government agency wants to own
up to having control over SURE-P. Officials of
the Budget Office of the Federation, the agency
mandated to serve as the account hub of
SURE-P said they could not speak concerning
SURE-P citing civil service hierarchy and
pointing squarely to the office of the minister of
finance which supervises the office.
But when Prof. Kame Okonjo was kidnapped,
her daughter and Minister of Finance Dr. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala said “with regards to the case of
SURE-P, there is a totally different process that
I have no control over”.
An official of the Budget Office told The Nation
that they do not have up to 50 per cent of the
purported N800 billion and accused the Senate
of distracting the office from promptly preparing
the 2014 budget prior to the President’s
submission to the National Assembly with
claims of the missing N500 billion. They
refused to be dragged into the debate over the
whereabouts of the N500 billion until they have
concluded work on the 2014 budget.
The officials of the office said they work with
what the Nigeria National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) remits to it and any claims
of missing funds should be directed to the
NNPC. They also wondered if the N800 billion
allegedly funneled to SURE-P was for the three
tiers of government or for the Federal
Government alone.
As at September 2013, the Federal Government
said it had paid out N25 billion to contractors
handling the Subsidy Reinvestment and
Empowerment Programme fund (SURE-P)
projects.
This disclosure was made by the SURE-P office
in Abuja, which also revealed that the SURE-P
committee has approved the appointment of
workers supporting the programme on Maternal
and Child Health in some states.
The contractors, who benefited from the N25
billion pay out include Dantata and Sawoe
construction company for handling the Abuja-
Abaji-Lokoja road (Abuja-Sheda junction) and
the 510 kilometre Kano-Maiduguri (Kano-
Wudil-Shuarin) road dualisation scheme.
Also paid was the China Civil Engineering
Construction Company (CCECC) for handling
the rail project running from Idu-Kaduna and
the Jebba-Kano rail line rehabilitation.
Other companies paid for the SURE-P projects
according to the programme’s office in Abuja
were Messers Raynold Construction Co for
work on the East-West road section 3 (Port
Harcourt-Eket) and Benin-Ore-Shagamu
section 1.
Reserved West Africa was paid for the work on
the Eastern rail line projects from PortHarcourt-
Markurdi and Nigeria Construction Limited for
the Enugu-Onitsha road dualisation.
Costain West Africa was paid for work done on
the railway rehabilitation from Jebba-Kano and
Messers Gitto Construzioni for the work on the
Abuja-Lokoja road.
According to Senator Kabiru Marafa (Zamfara,
APC), a member of the SURE-P Senate
committee, N800 billion had been generated so
far from subsidy as against N300 billion
claimed by SURE-P.
Marafa said: “This committee wrote to the
relevant organisations that benefit from this
SURE-P when it was inaugurated. It was said
that the subsidy regime was going to be N32 a
litre and this committee wrote the NNPC to
ascertain the quantity of fuel being imported
from the time this subsidy programme started.
“NNPC replied the committee that from January
2012 to December 2013, which if you calculate
it will give about 21 months… they gave a
breakdown of the quantity per month. When
you put up everything, it comes to roughly 25
billion litres per month.
“Now, if you multiply 25 billion by 32, you get
about N800 billion, and what SURE-P told us
when they came here when we invited them
was that they collected about N300 billion at
N15 billion flat rate per month. So if you
multiply 21 by 15 billion, you will get about
N315 billion. So what we are talking about is
the amount involved, which is N500 billion,
where is it? That is what we wanted NNPC to
tell us.”
The NNPC has absolved itself from the SURE-P
allegations. The corporation described the
allegation linking it to the Sure-P budget as a
comprehensive falsehood, noting that the
Corporation has no connection whatsoever with
the disbursement and appropriation of funds to
the Sure-P Committee.
In a statement last Wednesday by the Acting
Group General Manager, Tumini E. Green, the
NNPC said Sure-P budget is managed by a
Committee made up of eminent Nigerians.
It said: “NNPC is neither a member of the Sure-
P Committee nor does it pay any money into
the Sure-P account for any reason whatsoever.
The budget is the responsibility of other
requisite statutory authority. The committee
superintends over the disbursement and the
execution of the various social welfare
projects.”
Not a few have also queried some SURE-P
projects. Some of the programmes are
considered not to have direct impact on the
people. In a state, SURE-P fund is said to have
been used to buy donkeys. “That is scandalous
in this age”, said a source.
In Niger State, has concluded move to partner
with the Niger State Development Company
(NSDC) to construct a Three Star Hotel at the
cost of N436 million.
The state SURE-P Director General, Alhaji
Hassan Nuhu, said the effort was initiated to
create employment for youths.
He said contract for the hotel had been
awarded to Fourth Dimension Limited, adding
the project was expected to be completed in 10
months and handed to the state government.
Nuhu said: “The contract has been awarded to
a reputable firm that has track record of
performance for the construction of a Three Star
Hotel to add value to Justice Idris Legbo Kutigi
Conference Centre.”
Under the arrangement, the SURE-P will provide
70 per cent of the cost while the Niger State
Development Company will provide 30 per cent
balance of the cost of the project.
He said: ” But we will not embark on any
ground breaking ceremony, rather we have
instructed the contractor to keep the work
schedule so that the project is completed with
the 10 months period effective from October 1,
2013 so that the July 2014 handover and
inauguration date is achieved.”
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