The federal government of Nigeria has said it spent over $1.5 billion since 2020 to protect the nation’s oil installations and tackle the issue of crude oil theft.
This information was revealed by George Akume, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), during a public hearing on crude oil theft conducted by the House of Representatives.
Mr Akume, whose statement was delivered by Maurice Nandi, the Permanent Secretary of General Services, stressed the government’s concern over the findings from the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
The NEITI report highlighted the theft of over $46 billion worth of crude oil between 2009 and 2020.
The House of Representatives has established a special committee, led by Ado Doguwa, the Chairman of the House Committee on Petroleum Upstream, to probe the substantial losses in the oil and gas sector.
In addition, the Speaker of the House, Tajudeen Abbas, represented by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu, noted that Nigeria has lost $10 billion to crude oil theft in the past seven months alone.
He stressed the severity of the situation, indicating that no immediate solution could fully mitigate such a significant loss.