It’s Possible To Check Oil Theft In Nigeria – Macaulay By Stepp Offi COMRADE Ovuozourie Macaulay, Secretary to Delta State Government (SSG), on July 30, appeared on Channels Television, Sunrise Daily programme. The SSG answered questions solely on oil theft in Nigeria. Once again the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has released yet another damaging report on the sector (Oil Industry) with funding on subsidy payment, crude oil theft and more. For the period under review, 2009 and 2011 Nigeria recorded a total crude Oil production of over 2.5 billion dollars with total revenue of 117 million dollars. The report also disclosed that the Federal Government made total bill subsidy payment of N3trn to importers of refined petroleum products from 2009 to 2011. The disparity between the subsidy claims paid from the Federal Account and Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), was N175.9bn during the same period. Here is an edited excerpt of the interview. From the report, it is said that we lose 400,000 barrels of crude daily to oil thieves. Looking at all these, does it mean that it is beyond our capacity to check this kind of thing? I want to say that the problem is not beyond the country. The issue is how determined are we to tackle any issue headlong. The issue of oil theft is older than some of us. I can recall that back in the late 70s when I just finished secondary school, that was the first time I heard of the word bunkering, from a group of old friends. And they were asking that I should try to raise N15,000. Then N15,000 was big money. A car was not more than N7,000 then and I was being asked to raise N15,000 in order to join them. Where was I to get that kind of money when I couldn’t even afford money to move into the higher Institution? But the main issue was not even the money. When I found out what it was all about, I ran away, indeed I fled from them. So, bunkering is as old as that. And it has become an epidemic in the country. But what I think is that if the country is determined to check it, it is possible. Now, we have the Task Force and other government operatives to check this, why has it become difficult? There are two major thieves if you would use that word. We have the local or small ones who steal from abandoned oil wells but which are still active. These are wells that were drilled by these multi-nationals but they later discovered that what is there is not all that sufficient for them. Or it is sufficient but they don’t want to move in there yet. So they leave it for the time being. The locals have access to these ones and they take oil from there and they cook it, that is refine it locally. They then, sell it within the country. The second set is more technical. They pump from a particular point to a loading station, that is through the SPDC pipe- line. And in the course of pumping, like what I saw in the clip just now you have a valve in between at different points. And, I said it is technical because somebody has to understand the technique to be able to open the valves at a particular point and put the hose to move it into the lower part of the creeks where what we call the Cotonou boats are waiting. And they start loading from there from any of the terminal points. And by the time the metres would read for them to know that something had gone wrong, you would have pumped some millions or hundreds of thousands away. And they pump those into the Cotonou boats which then take them into big vessels waiting. These Cotonou boats load as much as the volume of crude that will go into 30 trucks and you know that a truck is supposed to take about 33,000 litres. Meanwhile, the mother vessel is waiting at the high sea. I will tell you that what the locals are getting for their local illegal refinery is not more that 10 percent of the total volume of oil theft. It is the mother vessels that now take the oil outside the country. That is why you cannot rule out the connivance of foreigners. This is because these vessels may not belong to Nigerians and if, they even belong to Nigerians the point of sale is not locally. Another set of theft is the one that has serious connivance of security agencies. You obtain a form duly signed to load. But what is on that form is to load what is called black oil or sludge. But you now go to where they are loading and you present it and with the connivance they now load it with crude, whereas the authorities issued a paper for black oil. You, talked about the various ways of stealing and the way they go about it. What exactly is holding the tracking down of the thieves? Like I said earlier, the first thing is determination. These are Nigerian communities and Nigerians are supposed to be manning some of these points. So, if we have the determination we can handle it. The second issue is whether those who are responsible to pursue these thieves are equipped to do so. Let us take the case of armed robbery for instance. A policeman who is going to fight an armed robber has a pistle and the armed robber has an AK47. Of course, the policeman would be forced to protect his life. So the issue is that are our security agencies fully equipped? The third issue, may be, I think, is from my background. Are the persons motivated? If you are doing any job and you are not motivated, you may not really want to risk yourself. if I know that if I go on this attack and lose my life and nobody is going to even see how to take my corpse for my burial and not to talk of how to take care of my family , of course , I will withdraw. So, we have the issues of whether the, security people are motivated enough, are they equipped enough or are they determined. And then, what are the legislatures. Are people being properly prosecuted when they are arrested? I would not want to take it that anybody is above the law. Talking about prosecution, anybody that is arrested, there should be the political will and determination to allow the law to take its course. And when you talk of the volume of oil that is stolen, it goes back again to the issue of prosecution. When you are not prosecuting people of course, more persons would have the tendency of going into the business. This is because if I know of a Mr X who has been in it, and anytime he is arrested he is left free and he is doing well, I may be persuaded to go into it and this increases the number of theft as well as the volume of oil stolen . But if Mr X is caught and put in jail, I will hesitate to either remain in it or go into it. It is not also true to say that, it is our politicians. How old is our democracy? Oil theft has been there for a long time. But let us face it, how many top Nigerians have being prosecuted for oil theft, be they politicians or the military or business men? Why are they not caught? Are we not seeing them? We cannot remove the issues of connivance as I have earlier said. There are those who are conniving, those who are directly involved and all of these is a circle. If they are caught, they should be prosecuted? Those who are lifting, those who open the valves and those who have the baby and mother vessels, whether they are foreigners or Nigerians, they should be brought to trial. Do it once or twice, we would see that there would be a lot of withdrawal? But for as long as we close our eyes to them, we close our eyes to security people who are conniving, people are lifting, baby and mother vessels’ owners and neighboring countries where the crude is being sent to, then the business would continue to thrive. In most cases this is a well organized crime. They know when to move and when oil is being pumped. Sorry, let me cut you short there, if there is no connivance, because there must be somebody telling them that we are going to pump oil from point A to point B. if that information is not passed they would not know. And of course, with the GSM, these days, information moves very fast. And like I said, some of them are even former workers of these oil companies who understand the routes and the pipelines and where the valves are. It is a cabal actually. What can the state governments do in their areas on security? That is one area where we have a challenge as a country. Who controls security agencies? They are not under the State Governors. So you cannot hold the Governors responsible. But let me now speak for Delta State at this point. What we are doing as a State. We are assisting the security agencies with vehicles, we are assisting the Navy, we repair some of their boats. Of course, just last week, we asked them to bring estimates for the repair of their boats. We help to repair the gun boats as well. But no Governor in the country has the right to call any of the security agencies to work. You can’t even use the word order. When you seek assistance, they would first of all seek the approval of their various offices in Abuja before they give you that assistance, especially when it concerns this issue where some cabals are involved. This is because even for them in the state, they don’t know who is involved in the above, so to say. So, you see it’s a challenge to this country.buy them flat bottom boats, which can move into the creeks to police the areas.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 04:54:54 +0000
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