Nigeria loses $5m to oil theft per day- Okonjo-Iweala

The Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said that Nigeria loses 150, 000 barrels of crude oil per day estimated to cost five million dollars to oil thieves.
Okonjo-Iweala, who is the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, gave the information at a dialogue with the Organised Private Sector (OPS) in Lagos on Tuesday.
The minister said in a paper,  “Implementing Nigeria’s Transformation Agenda”, at the forum that the government was working toward ensuring that the stealing stopped.

The Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said that Nigeria loses 150, 000 barrels of crude oil per day estimated to cost five million dollars to oil thieves.
Okonjo-Iweala, who is the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, gave the information at a dialogue with the Organised Private Sector (OPS) in Lagos on Tuesday.
The minister said in a paper,  “Implementing Nigeria’s Transformation Agenda”, at the forum that the government was working toward ensuring that the stealing stopped.
She said that money recovered from such leakages would be ploughed back into the treasury  for capital expenditure.
She said that the Federal Government was working with the navy and other security agencies to reduce leakages in the economy to a manageable level before the end of the year.
Okonjo-Iweala said that there was a need to know the exact amount involved in the fuel subsidy scam.
She said that the House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee, which probed the matter, did not give details of the amount involved in its report.
“I just want to say that we welcome the report but one thing we really needed is to know the exact size involved in the fraud,” she said.
The minister said that the Federal Government engaged the services of 20 forensic accountants and bank examiners to verify the arrears of 2011 subsidy claims to determine genuine cases.
She said that the Aigboje Aig-Imokhuede led Committee came up with a report that N420 billion was involved in the fraud.
She said that President Goodluck Jonathan took up the report and referred it to a presidential task force to deal with the issue.
“The bottom line is that it is fraudulent. We want to recover the money and punish those who have fraudulently misused the resources of the country,” Okonjo-Iweala said.
 “Everything the administration of President Jonathan is doing is driving toward diversification of the economy and create jobs,” she said.  (NAN)