“New acreages will be awarded for exploration and production under new laws and terms, especially offshore which is likely to account for much of the growth in the nation’s reserves.”
Browsing: Mr. Waziri Adio
“The sector is no longer the black hole that it once was, but we could still use more transparency. Things are opening up. There could be more in the area of contracts, ownership and expenditure transparency, but definitely there is some progress,” Adio said.
He added that, “If the National Assembly succeeds in passing all the four bills and the executive signs them all before politicking for 2019 starts, that will be a solid achievement indeed. It is possible. Please do this for Nigeria.”
The report also noted that 90 million dollars was lost through a practice where NNPC used a revised/lower pricing option at the point of payment instead of the higher price at the point of purchase.
It also showed that $586.011 million accounted for unreconciled export sales receivables in the year under review explaining that this is as a result of previous year unexplained/unreconciled difference. “The difference may continuously be carried forward. ”
“NPDC continues to be unaccountable to state institutions and the laws of the country. NPDC has consistently refused to give account of its operations and its management of national oil assets in its possession. NPDC failed to cooperate with the forensic audit ordered by the Auditor-General of the Federation in 2015.”
He said, “Transparency in this sector is very important for Nigeria. It is in our enlightened self-interest to do so because of the strategic nature of this sector to our economy. So we are doing this more for ourselves.”
“In a way, we can say that the oil sector took us into recession and took us out of it. We need to be alive to the danger of a double-dip and prevent that from happening.”
“Given that this is the first time we are doing this, we are very impressed with the compliance rate. We commend the high fliers and call for improvement from others. We want to see a situation where all the entities score 100 per cent possibly by next year.”
Adio contended that the country’s paltry savings may have defeated the rationale for having the savings int he first place, adding that, “Nigeria does not have oil savings to finance even a fifth of a year’s budget at the federal level, not to talk of having enough for investments or for the future generation.”
