Since 2020, the federal government has spent more than $1.5 billion to protect the nation’s oil installations and prevent crude oil theft.
George Akume, Secretary of the Government of the Federation (SGF), announced this on Thursday during a House of Representatives public hearing on crude oil theft.
The Permanent Secretary for General Services, Maurice Nandi, represented Akume.
The SGF stated that the Federal Government was concerned by the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) study, which revealed that more over $46 billion in oil was stolen between 2009 and 2020.
The House had formed a special committee to probe the losses in the oil and gas sector, led by Ado Doguwa, Chairman of the House Committee on Petroleum Upstream.
Also, Speaker of the House Tajudeen Abbas, represented by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu, stated that crude oil theft has cost the government $10 billion in seven months, and that no amount of wizardry can make up for this loss.
