Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas has revealed that the country lost about $46 billion to crude oil theft between 2009 and 2020, something he says, must be probed.
The Speaker’s remarks, delivered on his behalf by chairman of the House Committee on Petroleum Upstream, Al Hassan Ado Doguwa, was given at the inauguration of the ad hoc committee to investigate crude oil theft and loss of revenue.
He, however, expressed shock that critical agencies in the oil and gas sector such as the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Ministry of Petroleum Resources among others failed to honour the invitation to the investigative hearing.
Referencing the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) report, 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.
