BudgIT, a civic organisation has called on the Buhari government to assign a higher priority to oil and gas sector reforms in the second phase of the administration.
The call was following the outcome of the presidential election, which returned President Mohamadu Buhari in to office for the second term.
The company said that President Buhari had in August last year rejected the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) passed by the National Assembly after 16 years of back and forth.
BudgiT said Needless to reiterate that the PIGB would liberalise the governance structure of the oil industry, strengthen institutions and entrench transparency.
A statement from the BudgiT signed by
Communications Associate, Shakir Akorede said “For these critical reforms, we ask that the Bill should be reconsidered.”
Also demanding dire attention is the issue of beneficial ownership. BudgIT also noted that a lot of oil companies seem to operate under fake identities.
Citing an example the satement cited the case of Malabu Oil Scandal in which Dan Etete, petroleum minister under the Abacha regime, acquired “OPL 245” through Malabu Oil and Gas Limited, a camouflage of his personal company, to perpetuate one of the biggest frauds in the history of Nigeria’s oil sector.
Explaining further it said besides, our analysis of NEITI’s last audit report revealed, Losses arising from crude oil theft and sabotage in the upstream and downstream sectors amounted to $869.02 million and $3.55 billion respectively in 2016.
Principal Lead, BudgiT Gabriel Okeowo said “If properly structured back into the economy, the whopping amount that goes down the drain, courtesy of these lapses, will go a long way in contributing to the economic recovery and growth plan of the government,”
BudgiT said Lack of transparency and accountability remains the biggest challenge in the oil and gas sector. To solve this and ensure capacity building as well as the development of effective business models that are profit-driven, BudgiT calls for decisive reforms in the sector, stresding that it can no longer be ignored. It expressed optimism that the reforms will go a long way in enhancing good governance and processes that are flexible to the peculiarities of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.
BudgIT is a civic organization that applies technology to intersect citizen engagement with institutional improvement, to facilitate societal change. A pioneer in the field of social advocacy melded with technology, BudgIT uses an array of tech tools to simplify the budget and matters of public spending for citizens, with the primary aim of raising the standard of transparency and accountability in government.
