The House of Representatives has alleged that more than $10 billion worth of the nation’s crude oil has been stolen via fraudulent fuel subsidy claims by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other industry stakeholders, NAN reports.
It is the latest in the series of corruption scandals rocking President Buhari’s administration, where oil theft is currently reigning.
The House has therefore constituted an ad-hoc committee to investigate the petroleum products subsidy regime between 2017 and 2021 by the NNPC.
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This followed the adoption of a motion by Sergius Ogun (PDP-Edo) on the floor of the House on Wednesday in Abuja. In his motion, Mr Ogun said he was informed that as of 2002, the NNPC purchased crude oil at international market prices, which stood at 445,000 barrels per day.
He added that it was to enable it to provide petroleum products for local consumption, saying he was concerned that as of 2002, the installed capacity of Nigeria’s local refineries stood at 445,000 barrels per day.
However, he said that their capacity utilization began to nosedive and eventually fell entirely to zero due to the ineffectiveness and alleged corruption of critical stakeholders in the value chain.
The lawmaker said that due to a decline in the production capacity of the refineries, NNPC found it more convenient to export domestic crude in exchange for petroleum products on a trade by barter basis.
According to him, the component cost in the petroleum products subsidy value chain claim by the NNPC is highly over-bloated.
Mr Ogun claimed that the transferred pump price per liter, used by the NNPC in relation to PPMC, was under-quoted as N123-N128 instead of N162-N165.
He said that the fraudulent under-reporting of N37-N39 per liter, translated into more than N70 billion a month, or N840 billion naira a year.
Mr Ogun expressed worry that the consumption rate of petrol was 40 million to 45 million liters per day, adding that the NNPC used 65 million to 100 million liters per day.
According to him, the subsidy regime has been used by the NNPC and other critical stakeholders to subvert the nation’s crude oil revenue to more than $10 billion.
Mr Ogun said records showed that as of 2021, over $7 billion of 120 million barrels was diverted. The lawmaker added that subsidy was charged against petroleum product sales in the books of NNPC and against crude oil revenue in the books of NAPIMS, to the tune of more than N2 trillion, according to NAN.
The Nigerian downstream sector has been infected with oil theft that the NNPC director Mele Kyari said costs the country an average of 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day, which amounts to 73 million barrels in a year. This means, using an average $100 per barrel crude oil price, Nigeria loses more than $7.3 billion yearly.
But that’s outside the subsidy regime, which in itself, has been characterized by corruption. Stakeholders have long been accused of subsidy fraud, prompting the decision by Buhari to make NNPC the sole importer of petroleum products in Nigeria, which is believed would eliminate the middlemen committing the fraud.
Unfortunately, the House’s allegation against the NNPC means that subsidy fraud has become institutionalized, as it now is being practiced by the supposed watchdog.