Yemisi Izuora
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has revealed that Nigeria spent about N7.5 trillion financing the Joint Venture arrangement with International Oil Companies in five years.
The agency therefore lauded the federal government for terminating the JV agreements.
In a statement by the spokesman, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, the agency said ending the funding arrangement which lasted for 40 years, was a timely decision, bold, courageous and a huge relief given the avoidable huge debt burden which JV cash payments imposed on the country in the past.
Minister of State, Petroleum, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, led top officials of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and heads of IOCs to sign the Cash-call exit last Thursday in Abuja.
“We note that all NEITI independent audit reports on the oil and gas industry since the last 10 years had alerted the nation that the management of JV Cash Call regime had constituted drain pipe to the country’s scarce oil and gas revenues,” the statement said.
Giving the instance of spending by the federal government, NEITI said its reports showed that from 2009 to 2013, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had made total Cash Call payments of N7.5 trillion. While N2.4 trillion was paid in local currency, the greater transaction of $16.2 billion (about N5.1 trillion) was in foreign exchange, it said.