A group of civil society organisations have disclosed that Nigeria loses a total of N6.272 trillion to oil theft every year.
This formed part of recommendations on the 2023-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper at the end of a workshop jointly organised by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), ActionAid, ChristianAid and BudgiT held in Abuja on Wednesday.
According to the meeting, “about 400,000 barrels of crude oil are lost daily. At the current price of crude oil, this translates to $1.2 billion per month and $14.4 billion (N6.272trillion) per annum.
“This sum when brought into account in the books of NNPC Limited will increase its profit and the dividends to be paid to the government. “However, from the reports of Nigeria’s August 2022 oil production reported at less than 1mbpd, the theft may have escalated beyond 400,000bpd. The publicized Tompolo N4 billion a month contract may not solve the challenge. Comparative experience and previous budgetary votes show that technology can be deployed to solve oil theft.”
They therefore urge the government to reduce oil theft and vandalism to a minimum by holding accountable officers under whose watch industrial-scale oil theft occurs.
“Demand value for money in the Tompolo Pipeline Protect Contract and similar contracts. Consider the removal of the leadership of NNPC under whose watch this stealing has escalated. In the alternative, FGN should set clear theft reduction targets for the leadership of NNPC and the security agencies.
“Consider a certification and authentication system – pipeline integrity programme that traces Nigerian crude from the wells to refineries as a means of eradicating oil theft. Lessons can be drawn from the experience of “blood diamonds”.
“Activate the real-time online monitoring of pipelines and strategic oil and gas resources paid for in federal budgets between the years 2010 – 2014.
The meeting also called on the federal government to review the debt accumulation procedure and rules.
It stated that Nigeria’s outstanding debts as at the end of June 2022 as reported on the website of the Debt Management Office is N42.845 trillion ($103.312 billion), adding that this excludes the N20trillion in Ways and Means financing which when added brings the total to N62.845 trillion ($151.538 billion).
“With debt service requirements exceeding FGN retained revenue in the first four months of 2022 and a 2023 proposal of N6.663trillion (debt service and sinking funds) against projected revenue of N8.46trillion.”
The group therefore called for “a moratorium on new debts except there are exceptional circumstances justifying the new debt and this should be in accordance with the provisions of the FRA.
“Set a debt ceiling in accordance with S.42 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. This ceiling should be
