Nigeria loses N305b to fraud in gas flare data

Nigeria loses an estimated $1billion (about N305 billion) in revenue every year due to the falsification of gas flare data, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has revealed.

The minister spoke yesterday in Abuja at a gas competence seminar with the theme ‘Towards ending gas flaring and unlocking gas potential in Nigeria.” He hinted that the Federal Government would set up an independent tracking mechanism in 2017 to ascertain the actual volume of gas that was flared in the country.

“My take is that we lose over half a billion to a billion of government revenue looking at the basis of the present penalties position. Nobody is effectively monitoring the volume, so when you actually go for the real effect of what is flared, in terms of statistics, it is much higher than those figures. However, we must appreciate the efforts that have been made in the past to increase penalties, among others,” Kachikwu said.

The Guardian, December 14

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