Reps Give Ministers, Others Ultimatum On N16.25trn Crude Oil Loss

House of Representatives has issued a 24-hour ultimatum to the ministers of state for petroleum, Heineken Lokpobiri; environment, Mohammed Hassan Abdullahi; finance, Wale Edun and the chief executive officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari to turn up for its investigation into crude oil theft and loss of revenue.

Also given the ultimatum are the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The House ad-hoc committee investigating crude oil theft gave the ultimatum at its inaugural sitting yesterday, following a motion moved by a member of the committee Philip Agbese (APC, Benue).

Agbese stated that it was disrespectful for the officials and agencies to shun the invitation of the House when the country was bleeding as a result of crude oil theft.

Consequently, the committee ruled that the affected agencies and officials must appear before the committee on Friday at 10. am to account for the losses the country has incurred from crude oil theft.

This was just as speaker of the House, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas decried Nigeria’s loss of $46 billion estimated at N16.25 trillion to crude oil theft between 2009 and 2020 (11 years).

Abbas, who declared the inaugural meeting of the ad-hoc committee open, said the menace of crude oil theft has drastically hampered the growth of the country’s oil production, with Nigeria losing between five to 30 percent of daily crude production.

He expressed shock that critical agencies in the oil and gas sector such as the NNPCL, NUPRC, Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources among others failed to honour the invitation of the committee.

Represented by the chairman of the House committee on Petroleum Upstream, Alhassan Ado Doguwa, the speaker said the heads of the agencies are not doing the nation any good by refusing to appear before the parliament to answer questions on the critical aspect of the economy.

Abbas said if decisive action was not taken to address the issue, the country may be thrown into a deeper fiscal crisis due to dwindling revenue from the oil and gas sector.

He quoted data from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) which showed that Nigeria’s oil production declined from 2.51 million barrels per day in 2005 to 1.77 million barrels per day in 2020.

In his remarks, chairman of the committee, Hon. Alhassa Usman Rumrum, said the volume of losses due to oil theft in the country and the impact on the economy is completely unacceptable and cannot be tolerated by any government that sincerely loves its citizens.

Also, the deputy inspector-general of police in charge of Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID), Sylvester Alabi said the police have put in place a task force to assist other security agencies in arresting those vandalising oil installations.