Nigeria lost $22 billion, about N3.8 trillion to trade misinvoicing
and other anomalies in the petroleum sector in 10 years, between 2002 and 2011.
This, according to a report released
yesterday, titled, the ‘2014 Nigeria Natural Resource Charter (NNRC)
Benchmarking Report’, is due partly to weak cost regulation in the oil and gas
sector.
The amount lost is 76.6 per cent of
the figure budgeted for the 2014 fiscal year. Trade misinvoicing is a method
for moving money illicitly across borders which involves deliberately
misreporting the value of a commercial transaction on an invoice submitted to
customs or other agencies of government.
The report, presented by the
Nigerian Resource Governance Institute, NRGI, the Centre for Public Policy and
Advocacy, CPPA among others, summarises the second benchmarking of Nigeria’s
petroleum sector governance against the 12 precepts of the Natural Resource
Charter.
The NNRC is led by a 14-member
independent, multidisciplinary expert advisory panel, comprising Mr. Odein
Ajumogobia, former Minister of Petroleum and Foreign Affairs minister; Mr.
Adeola Adenikinju, a Professor of Economics from the University of Ubadan; Mr.
Bode Agusto, former Director General of the Budget Office and Professor Akpan
Ekpo, Director General, West African Institute for Financial and Economic
Management, among others.
According to the report, fiscal
policies for petroleum production contracts in Nigeria, especially the
Production Sharing Contracts (PSC) that govern deep water operations, have
failed to ensure that the government received a rising share of revenue in
periods of potential increased profitability.
The report said, “Experts also
recount extensive revenue losses due to weak cost regulation.”
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