President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to initiate decisive steps to curtail the massive stealing of the nation’s crude oil.
Lawan offered the admonition on Friday in his remarks on the occasion of the 2023 Budget presentation by President Buhari.
The President of the Senate who put the figure at 1 million crude oil loss per day and revenue loss of about N790 billion in the first quarter of this year, noted that the nation’s OPEC daily quota of 1.8million barrels per day was under serious jeopardy.
He said: “Mr President, our economy is still challenged by dearth of revenues. The main source of revenue for the Nigerian Government is Oil and Gas. We always consider the diversification of the economy as crucial and it’s indeed crucial. The idea of deploying our revenues from the Oil and Gas to support the diversification into real sectors like Agriculture, Manufacturing, Mining, etc is now under serious threat. The large scale and massive stealing of our Oil, is concerning, as this reduces drastically the revenues available to the Government.
“With conflicting figures, projections have put our losses from this malaise at between 700,000 to 900,000 barrels of crude oil per day, leading to about 29 to 35 per cent loss in Oil revenue in the first quarter of 2022. This represents an estimated total fall from N1.1 trillion recorded in the last quarter of 2021 to N790 billion in the first quarter of this year.
“The situation has worsened. Recently, the loss of our Oil has reached 1 million barrels per day. Translated into monetary terms, our loss is monumental. The figures show we are not able to meet the OPEC daily quota of 1.8million barrels per day.
“Mr President, I consider the Oil thieves the worst enemies of our country. The thieves have declared war on our Country and our people. I strongly feel that if we do not take the necessary measures to stop the thieves immediately, our economy will be devastated, as efforts to provide infrastructure and diversification of the economy would both be thwarted. It is time to take drastic and desperate measures against the thieves.”
“Aside from containment of crude oil theft, the President of the Senate advised the Buhari administration to take more than passing interest in the worrisome budget deficit ” estimated at N7 trillion and the grim prospect of its increase to about N11.30 trillion as presented in the 2023 – 2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework / Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP). ”
In a similar vein, he called on President Buhari to shore up federal government revenue by reviewing the waivers and concessions the government has granted to the tune of Six Trillion Naira as he noted that some of the waivers could not be justified while also advocating that certain revenue generating agencies be stripped of direct funding by placing them on the cost of collection of revenues.
“Your Excellency, we can reduce the deficit by stopping the theft. We can also consider other options to source more revenues for the government. I believe that it is imperative to review the waivers and concessions the government has granted to the tune of Six Trillion Naira. In a difficult time like this, some of the waivers may no longer be justified. In the same vein, we should consider taking off some of the major revenue-generating agencies from direct funding by placing them on the cost of collection of revenues, as we did for Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Customs Service.
In this regard, agencies like Nigeria Ports Authority, (NPA), Nigeria Communications Commission, (NCC), Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, (NIMASA), etc can be given encouraging costs of collections of revenues. The National Assembly Committees on Finance and the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning should jointly look into this matter immediately.
“The condition would require courageous fiscal policy to redress, by reducing the deficit, not just to avoid further increases in our debts, but to ensure macro-economic stability, grow confidence in the system and guarantee sustainable economic growth. The National Assembly will support policy frameworks geared towards prudence, transparency and accountability through rigorous appropriation. ”
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