Reps Vow To Recover $20b Revenue From Oil Sector

By Oduyemi Odumade

The House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources downstream has pledged to assist the Federal Government to recover over twenty billion US dollars revenue from the sector.

The committee also said it will review implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) to remove bottlenecks and allay fears of stakeholders in the petroleum sector.

The chairman of the committee, Mr Ikeagwuonu Ugochinyere, who made the remark during the Innaugural meeting of the committee, said they
will legislate for energy security, professionalism in the petroleum sector, economic transformation, accountability, institutional reforms, revenue recovery and generation.

According to him, the House has received in plenary the NEITI report that has far reaching recommendations both in the downstream, upstream and midstream sector, especially the issue of over $8.5 billion unremitted royalties, other oil revenues and the discrepancies that have to do with the quantity of PMS imported by the NNPCL.

“The implementation of the PIA which has become a major concern to key stakeholders would be reviewed by this committee, what was done before the PIA, what they are doing after the PIA”.

“The assets that used to be national assets before the coming into effect of the PIA. Where are they? Who is with them? All these the committee would look into to ensure that the intention of the PIA is achieved”.

Mr Ugochinyere said the committee is aware of the pains Nigerians are going through as the result of removal of oil subsidy, hence the committee will also undertake a comprehensive audit of the Subsidy regime which he said was done away with because it was corrupted.

Edited By Grace Namiji