The Federal Government has said it spent $1.5 billion since 2020 to protect the country’s oil installations and curb crude oil theft.
The revelation was made by the Secretary of the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume on Thursday.
Akume, represented by the Permanent Secretary, General Services, Maurice Nandi, made this known at a public hearing of the House of Representatives on crude oil theft.
The SGF expressed concern over the report of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), which estimated that over $46 billion worth of crude oil was stolen between 2009 and 2020.
The House of Representatives has set up a special committee, headed by Chairman, House Committee on Petroleum Upstream, Ado Doguwa, to investigate the losses in the oil and gas sector.
Speaker of the House, Tajudeen Abbas, represented by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu, lamented that $10 billion has been lost in just seven months to crude oil theft, stressing that no government can perform magic with such a huge loss.
