By Joe Egbodo
As the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives gets set to commence investigation into the alleged expenditure of about N10 billion on chattered jets by Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, key stakeholders invited have continued to shun the panel.
The committee had earlier got the mandate of the House to investigate the alleged expenditure, following a motion moved to that effect by a member, Samuel Adejare, but could not proceed as the minister went to court seeking an injunction against the investigation until recently when the Speaker of the House, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, gave them the nod to proceed.
However, the committee, after slating the commencement of the probe for June 26, 2014, both the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC) and the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) have reportedly written the committee, officially declining to honour the invitation extended to them.
In separate letters addressed to the Chairman of the committee, Solomon Adeola Olamilekan, NNPC and PPMC, which were alleged to have bankrolled the cost of maintaining the chartered jets, cited their reasons not to appear before the committee on as the matter already before different courts of competent jurisdictions, and that doing otherwise would be subjudice.
This is coming just as the embattled minister was said to have vowed not to appear before the committee until the matters pending before the courts were resolved.
Allison-Madueke had approached three different courts to seek perpetual injunctions to stop the probe.
While Justice Ahmed Ramat Mohammed of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja refused to grant the request to stop the probe and fixed hearing for today, the other two courts were yet to take any action on the matter.
When contacted, Olamilekan declared that there was no going back on the probe as directed by the House, notwithstanding the antics of those involved.
