Diezani Allison-Madueke
The African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD) has accused the federal government of aiding the mega corruption in the oil and gas sector due to its inability to implement the House of Representatives investigation of the subsidy regime carried out by the Aig Imoukede Technical Committee on fuel subsidy and the Ribadu report.
The Executive Secretary of the group, Dr. Otive Igbuzor disclosed this in Abuja at a one day policy dialogue on “Petroleum Subsidy in Nigeria”, with the aim of examining issues relating to petroleum subsidy and economic development; monitoring of pump price of fuel in Nigeria, pricing of petroleum product and SURE-P.
Igbuzor said: “The issue of pricing of petroleum had dominated public discourse and policy contestations over the years which had focused on subsidy removal deregulation or appropriate pricing.
“Some scholars have argued that the lack of established mechanism for determining adjustments to prices, hence adjustments in government administered prices have tended to be in quantum leaps.
“There are no mechanisms to verifiably measure the volume of oil at the point of production. There is no independent, objective and fair oversight of the sector. The oil and gas sector in Nigeria is opaque with lots of allegations of corruption and management. In the recent past, the Aig Imoukede Technical Committee on fuel subsidy and the Ribadu report of the petroleum revenue special task force. All these probes show there is mega corruption in the oil and gas sector,” he added.
Continuing, Igbuzor said that the aim of the SURE-P scheme introduced by the government after the 2012 uprising was to drive the provision of the critical infrastructure from the projected $6 billion savings per annum, but lamented that the management of the proceeds had been characterised by poor management and accountability concerns.
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