Crude oil, Nigerias main export, continues to dwindle from the effect of scandalous corruption in the oil sector as a report by the Auditor-General of the Federation (AuGF), has revealed the latest news of sleaze in the country’s oil and gas shipping.
According to the AuGF’s report, more than 17.877 million barrels of crude oil, valued at $1,020,969,281.12 (One billion, twenty million, nine hundred and sixty-nine thousand, two hundred and eighty-one dollars, twelve cents only), were exported from 2016 to 2019 without proper documentation.
According to the report, which was signed by the immediate-past Auditor-General, Adolphus Aghughu, and submitted to the Clerk of the National Assembly on June 29, 2022, this gives rise to either non-repatriation or delay in the repatriation of export proceeds. In other words, there was room for corruption.
The report focused on pre-shipment inspection and monitoring of crude oil and gas exports by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning.
Many stakeholders have since last year questioned how this the incidences of crude oil theft have been allowed to happen under Buhari as President and Minister of Petroleum, after an unbelievable number of oil-theft points were discovered following the Federal Governments controversial pipeline surveillance contract with a company, Tantita Security Services, to check the massive oil theft in the Niger Delta. The company is linked to Government Ekpemupolo, popularly called Tompolo, the former leader of the militant group, Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta, (MEND).
Notably, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, through his representative, at an event at the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Effurun, Delta State, last October, said: Oil theft has denied the country of an estimated 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The adverse effect of this is the drop in the production of crude oil and decline in the national income”.
It is estimated that more than $3.3bn (2.9bn) has been lost to crude oil theft since 2021.
