By NAOMI SHARANG

The Leader of the Senate, Sen. Opeyemi Bamidele, says as the Senate resumes plenary, it would unearth the root causes of economic sabotage in the Petroleum Industry.

Bamidele gave the assurance in a statement he signed on Tuesday in Abuja.

He said the upper chamber is committed to unearthing the roots of economic sabotage in the petroleum industry in the national interest.

?We will also develop institutional mechanisms that will make the industry more efficient and functional?.

He said: ?As we return fully to the parliamentary sessions, the National Assembly will, without ambiguity, revisit its decision to decisively address challenges in the petroleum industry.

?The industry is not optimal in its performance. This may not be unconnected to crude oil theft, endless turn around maintenance of public refineries, importation of substandard petroleum products and disruption of fuel supply, among others.

?Before we went on annual recess, the President of the Senate, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, constituted an ad-hoc committee to beam searchlights on all these issues.

?The Senate later expanded the scope of the committee to deal with diverse allegations of economic sabotage in the petroleum industry.

?Contrary to some media reports, the Senate never suspended its Ad hoc Committee to Investigate Alleged Economic Sabotage in the Nigerian Petroleum Industry.

?What happened was that the committee postponed its public hearing due to the need to address issues that border on the rules of the National Assembly.

?Both chambers of the National Assembly will resolve the issues and possibly constitute a joint committee that will continue with the investigation from where the ad hoc committee stopped?.

He further said that a lot of events indeed happened between the period we went on annual recess and now.

?The events obviously ranged from the nationwide protests to the return of long queues to our filling stations; festering instability in the foreign exchange market and flood disaster that escalated humanitarian crises in some states of the federation.

?Each of these public concerns, again, reminded us about the complexity of our socio-economic challenges; people?s desperation for multi-pronged antidotes.

?And the crucial tasks of transforming Nigeria to a federation we shall all be proud of someday.?

Bamidele also said that the Senate was expecting a new Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) from the Executive.

?MTEF is an integral part of our budget culture that emphasises a multi-year public expenditure planning exercise; sets out the future budget requirements for existing services among others.

?We are equally preoccupied with the review of the 1999 Constitution. In the Senate, the Constitution Review Committee is chaired by Deputy President of the Senate, Sen. Jibrin Barau.

?In the coming weeks, the Committee will hold retreats and strategy sessions; call for memoranda and organise zonal meetings on some sections of our grundnorm that should be amended?. (NAN)

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