By Thompson ABISOLA
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the installation of technology monitoring schemes and structures under the Petroleum Equalisation Fund(PEF) for the total sum of N17 billion.
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) presided over by the Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday in Abuja.
He said the deployment of the automated fuel system management and censor network would ensure 100 per cent tracking and monitoring of petroleum products.
“The narrative is that we have all struggled with this whole subsidy payment; how much is consumed in Nigeria; volumes of products moved out illegally and the whole impact on Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC). The President has given a very serious mandate that we ought to rein in on this process.
“The essence of what PEF is doing is that this will enable us track refined petroleum product movement from the point of LC (letter of credit) opening from the vessels that come into Nigeria, up until the point where there are discharged into tanks in Nigeria.
“It will monitor from the tanks to trucks in Nigeria; monitor the trucks till they deliver the products into the storage tanks for the filling stations and they are discharged and sold. So, that will produce a 100 percent holistic monitoring of this production.’’
He said for the first time, Nigeria would be able to tell how much petroleum products was consumed in this country.
According to him, there has been so much going on in terms of the movement of consumption numbers from over 30 million litres a day to 70 million litres to 18 million liters a day during the difficult times.
He said the president had challenged him to ascertain what in reality, Nigeria consumed and where the products were going. Kachikwu said the process would be able to track every truck.
The minister said the process was expected for a period of three years, but expressed optimism that within one year, the real effects of the process would begin to show.
“Obviously you need time to train and to continue to improve the system. We hope that by the time we start doing the 2020 budget in 2019, we would have gotten to a point where lot of the losses that you are seeing are tracked and substantial impact will be made in monies that come into the federation accounts.
“It will help us keep proper data repository of consumption in this country, destruction; data on all trucks that operate total number of products received and what is sold out of filling stations.
“It is going to a collaborative system that involves NNPC, Department of Petroleum Resources(DPR) and Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) but situated in PEF.’’
More so, Kachikwu said the FEC approved the revision of contract for the construction of Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB)’s headquarters in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
He said the contract was given out in 2015 initially for a contract sum of about N27 billion but was revised to a contract sum of N42 billion due to foreign exchange variables.
“It is one of the dramatic skylines in Yenagoa and has gone quite substantially far. The reason for this increase was largely due to foreign exchange variables determinant which was initially about N157 to a dollar but today it is N305 to a dollar and still counting.
“The whole idea is for contract to be completed. It is a 24-month contract and fairly far gone. We hope that once that is done, NCMB will stop paying rent in the series of buildings that it rented in Yenagoa,’’ he said.
