TheCable

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) says passage of the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) will eliminate huge losses in the petroleum sector.

The agency said this in a statement issued by Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, its director of communications.

NEITI also called for a speedy passage in the house of representatives for a concurrence to the bill.

He described the passage of the PIGB as “not only legendary but historic”, saying it will re-position the petroleum industry “to fully embrace competition, openness, accountability, professionalism as well as better profit returns on investments.”

“We are delighted that to avoid the controversies that killed the last PIB, the current senate, carefully assembled experts who carefully broke the bill into various segments beginning with the governance aspect of the proposed law,” the agency said.

“In 2016, it was in realisation of the current stagnation of investment opportunities in the petroleum industry, the negative consequences to the economy as a result of the absence of the new law that led to the publication of a researched policy brief titled ‘Urgency of a new Law for the Petroleum Sector.

“In that publication shared with members of the national assembly, NEITI alerted the nation that Nigeria had so far lost over $200 billion as a result of absence of the Law.

“We also note that NEITI’s 2013 audit of the oil and gas sector revealed that a cumulative $10.4bn and N378.7bn were lost as a result of under-remittances, inefficiencies, theft or absence of a clear governance framework for the sector. The cost to the nation in 2013 alone was N1.74 trillion.

“These lost revenues were as a result of investments withheld or diverted by investors to other (more predictable) jurisdictions. The hedging by investors stems from the expectation that the old rules would no longer apply, but not knowing when the new ones would materialise.

“With the prospects of the new petroleum law coming in to place, Nigeria’s huge revenue losses as a result of governance lapses will be eliminated.”