Thieves stealing more crude oil than cost of subsidy in 16 years — NEITI

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has said spent over N13 trillion or $74 billion on fuel subsidies in 16 years, which is between 2005 and 2021.

This was disclosed by the NEITI’s Executive Secretary, Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, who lamented the nation lost another N16.25trn ($46.16bn) from 619.7m barrels of crude oil to theft in 12 years (2009 to 2020).

Orji who stated this at a policy dialogue on oil swaps in Abuja on Thursday, said the removal of fuel subsidy and full deregulation of the petroleum sector will end oil swaps, which have also failed.

Citing NEITI’s recent policy brief on subsidy, Orji said, “Nigeria spent over N13trn ($74bn) on fuel subsidies between 2005 and 2021. The figure in relative terms is equivalent to Nigeria’s entire budget for health, education, agriculture, and defence in the last five years, and almost the capital expenditure for 10 years between 2011 2020.”

In spite of this spending, the NEITI head said Nigeria continues to suffer inefficient supply arrangements-scarcity and its attendant fuel queues.

“The volume of crude oil losses represents a loss of more than 140,000 barrels per day,” he noted.