Nigeria loses nearly $8 billion (about N1.24 trillion) per year to oil sector corruption despite the existence of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has disclosed.
Expressing outrage over the development, ERA/FoEN yesterday called for a new order of transparency as it launched a new campaign titled “Publish What You Pump”. The campaign aims to fill the gap in the present Publish What You Pay and NEITI processes, according to ERA/FoEN Head of Media, Mr. Philip Jakpor.
The new campaign was launched in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State in South-South Nigeria, and was graced by representatives of civil society groups, community-based organisations and the media.
ERA/FoEN Executive Director, Godwin Ojo, said at the event that although the NEITI processes have been ongoing for nearly 12 years, it has largely failed to sanitise the Nigerian petroleum sector or reduced the level of corruption as Nigeria loses nearly 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day, costing the nation nearly $8 billion per year.
The initiative will require that institutions such as the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) set up appropriate guidelines for measuring oil and gas production as well as have the necessary tools to carry out their oversight functions.
“The launch,” according to Ojo, “marks an important milestone of a national and global advocacy initiative which will address the lack of transparency and accountability in the oil and gas sector thereby posing grave threat to national security and sustainable development.”
Below is an excerpt of Ojo’s speech at the occasion:
The domestication of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) into the Nigerian context seeks to address poor resource governance and revenue mobilisation to reverse the resource curse. Nigeria is endowed with abundant natural resources but is unable to utilise this for the wellbeing of citizens. As a result, poverty is rife, and more than 50 percent of its citizens live on less than US$2 per day. The Nigerian government is yet to properly account for the US$ 600 billion accruing from oil in the last four decades. We believe that given the necessary political will and prioritisation, Nigeria can afford a National Basic income Scheme (NaBIS) of about N15,000 for all unemployed Nigerians if all the leaks, looting and theft of its resources are eliminated.
The Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) audits have unearthed a variety of discrepancies over the 10-year audit period and discovered nearly $2.6 billion dollars loss, tax evasion, and non-payment of royalties by the oil majors. In all counts, the oil majors failed to respect the NEITI findings but have ignored them with impunity.
The Publish What You Pump draws attention to the crime scene of ecological devastation, ecocide, and oil theft in the Niger Delta. It is time to hold oil companies and the presiding captains overseeing these rots and deaths corporately and personally accountable for the deaths and destruction they are helping to create.
The lack of transparency and accountability in the oil sector is leading to massive oil theft from the point of production to the point of sale.