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.”
Source: Vanguard
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