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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
House of Representatives, on Wednesday, received the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) 2021 Oil and Gas Report, with a resolve to investigate N8 trillion unremitted oil revenue.
The report was laid before the House by the chairman of the House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) , Ikeagwuonu Ugochinyere. This followed the adoption of a motion jointly sponsored by Ugochinyere and the Chairman Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) , Alhassan Ado-Doguwa.
After receiving the report, the House mandated its Committees on Petroleum Resources (Upstream and Downstream) to investigate alleged misappropriation of oil revenue, shoddy contracts, extra budgetary expenditure by the relevant Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) of federal government. The committee is expected to report back
within eight weeks for further legislative actions.
Ugochinyere, before laying the report, stated that 2021 NEITI Oil and Gas Report presentation is coming at a time when the government needs to block all revenue leakages, retrieve all debts owed to it by oil companies within the sectors, as well as improve its income generation.
The lawmaker, who represents Ideato North/ South Federal Constituency, since the enactment of the NEITI Act in 2004, no session of the House of Representatives has ever received and debated the Report of NEITI, as required by section 4(3) of the Act.
However, he expressed displeasure
“that the 2021 Oil and Gas Report disclosed a rise in the number of unremitted revenues to the Federation to the tune of $9.85 billion and a total crude oil and gas revenue of $23.046
billion, signalling a 13 per cent increase from the total of $20.430 billion realized in 2020.
“According to the NEITI Report, the unremitted revenues consist of $278.813million earned by the Federation from trial marketing under the First Exploration and Production JV,
$7.61million from OML 116 operated by Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) and $5.85 billion proceeds from the sales of domestic crude oil, including about $871.15million
unremitted crude oil sales.
“According to the NEITI Report, 54 companies accounted for a total metered crude oil production of 634.60 million barrels. Out of this, 68.47 million barrels were lost to production
adjustments, measurement error and theft/sabotage, leaving a balance of 566.13 million barrels.”
Furthermore, Uh oh noted that “the NEITI Report, the total outstanding taxes payable to FIRS as of 31st
of July 2023, was US$ 13.591million while the total amount of outstanding Federation revenue payable to NUPRC as of 31st of December 2022 stood at US$8.251 billion.
“For Downstream operations, NEITI reported that the volume of PMS imported in 2021 under the Direct Sale Direct Purchase (DSDP) arrangement based on NNPCL’s records was .significantly different from the volume of PMS imported into as per NMDPRA records which indicates that there is no independent third-party confirmation of product importation volume and
subsidy value.”
