Senate fails to name oil thieves after probe

The Senate ad-hoc committee that investigated oil theft presented its report yesterday but failed to name the perpetrators.

It instead said all stakeholders must accept collective responsibility for the menace.

Senator Bassey Akpan, who also chaired the committee, said apportioning blame would not curb oil theft. 

The panel, in its recommendations, said, “Curtailing crude oil theft should be a collective responsibility thereby well-meaning members of the public must be encouraged to report illegal activities and transactions in stolen crude oil that may come to their knowledge from any part of the world.

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“Nigeria should seek international financial collaboration to check illegal Letters of Credit used to fund the sale and purchase of Nigeria stolen crude,  as such illegal crude sales can only be transacted  through the world financial system.”

It also urged the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission to deploy an online real time monitoring system across all upstream oil and gas production platforms to ensure accurate measure of production volume. 

Akpan justified the N48bn oil pipeline surveillance contract awarded to a former Niger Delta militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo, by the Federal Government.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) had, in September, awarded the contract to a firm linked to Tompolo.

The N4bn per month contract, which covers Delta, Ondo, Imo, Rivers and some parts of Bayelsa, attracted oppositions from some stakeholders. 

But Akpan said there was nothing wrong engaging non-state actors to secure oil pipelines in as much as the action was yielding desired results. 

He said oil theft wrecked the country’s oil production capacity and had resulted in the loss of about $2bn this year alone.