For over two weeks now, the members of the House of Representatives  have been trying to solve the riddle of the missing N500billion SURE-P funds.

And it does not seem that the puzzle will be an easy one. Given the way issues of this nature usually go in Nigeria, we expect that the hot air being blown about the matter will soon die down, and get ign
ored, or very soon, a more devastating scam will blow open, and then we simply move on in a manner that defines us as simply trending with the latest.

But if I may ask, how can N500 billion get missing? Is it a piece of brown coin that slips through a clenched fist? N500billion! How can such an amount be missing? Was it misplaced? Was it put in a wrong account? Was the arithmetic that produced the figure wrongly calculated? Or, more potently feared, has the money been stolen by the operators of the system?

Pa Christopher Kolade, an otherwise respected old man is the head of the SURE-P agency, which was born with the sole aim of managing the funds that will accrue from the N32 per litre increment of 2012.

According to NNPC records, between January last year and last September (a period of 21 months), the country has sold 27 billion litres of petrol. So it is a straight arithmetic of multiplying N32 by 27 billion litres, and we should get the full size of the Sure-P treasury—N800 billion!

I will not belabor myself to ask what the agency has done with that humongous sum, because it always ends up in unprofitable arguments.

I am worried by the fact that the sum of N500 billion can grow wings and fly out of the coffers of the agency.
It is even more perplexing that the Ministry of Finance which hosts the funds has maintained a troubling silence on the matter. Pray, at what point did the said sum get missing? Before it was handed over to SURE-P managers or while it was in the custody of the Ministry of Finance?

But those who have followed the activities of the SURE-P scheme from beginning will hardly be surprised. Here was an agency that spent N2.2 Billion to set up a secretariat, and blew N75 million on local travels within the first six months.

No doubt, the surface intent behind the setting up of the scheme appears nice. But in real terms, how has it turned things around for Nigerians?

Yes, I know that the SURE-P has assisted in some major capital projects like road construction as well as railway development,  (which is the brief of the Works ministry) yet, it does look like Nigerians have been short-changed in the anchor on which SURE-P was berthed.

I recall all the lofty projects and programmes which the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo –Iweala, reeled out in an A-2 size publication detailing all that a SURE-P programme will accomplish. Almost two years after, I dare say that there is a huge gap between what was promised and what is being delivered.

It is worse that the accruals are not devoted to running the SURE-P  projects. Kolade says he gets a flat N15 billion every month, irrespective of the number of litres sold. So who is keeping the balance and why?
Yes, the states and local governments also share from it, but the Reps have identified that there is a missing N500billion in that which accrues to the Federal Government.

And pray, what are the states doing with their own share of the SURE-P?
Beside Delta and Rivers States which have embarked on remarkable employment schemes, not much is known of what the other states do with their share of the subsidy funds.

All said, the SURE-P managers must be made to account for the said missing N500 billion! It is tax-payers’ money. To impose higher petrol price on them , and not only deny them the benefit of the accruals, but also steal the money, will amount to triple jeopardy which can trigger the anger of even Angel Gabriel.

The lawmakers, in exercise of their over sight functions, must depart from the pattern of old, and get to the root of this suspicion. The air must be clearly cleared and satisfactorily too. We watch. We wait.