The federal government has taken a bold step to
tackle the challenges of data inconsistency in Nigeria's oil and gas industry
with the setting up of the Nigerian Petroleum Fiscal Consistency Network.
The network, according the government, would have
technical officers drawn from the Ministries of Petroleum Resources; Finance;
and Budget and National Planning, as well as their agencies.
They would work to ensure streamlined data capture
process, data integrity and data management, as well as provide the technical
basis for which technical estimates on oil revenue and
production benchmark would be made without guesswork.
Speaking to journalists shortly after the opening
of the first meeting of the team in Abuja, Wednesday, the Technical
Assistant to the Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, the Minister of State for Petroleum
Resources, Dr. Tim Okon, said having a consistent data in the sector
would aid better decision making by the government.
Okon, explained that the sector could no longer
afford to produce figures that differ from one government agency to another
with the inauguration of the committee.
According to him: “This is a technical team of
people who are drawn from the key ministries and parastatals mainly from
the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Petroleum Resources and then
the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.
“What the committee is set up to do is to form a
network and it is called the Petroleum Fiscal Consistency Network.
The objective is to ensure three things: Data consistency; secondly
fiscal models that are also consistence across the different groups; and
result consistency,
that is whatever we are modelling and results will
be consistent
across board."
He further stated: “The team is charged with the
responsibility of that decision makers have consistent set of data in
order for enlightened decision making to take place."
Okon, noted that having a consistent data would
help decision makers across all sector including on budgets and investments,
adding that
the network will bring together agencies involved
in revenue
collection and data on crude oil production level
and amount of petrol
imported and consumed in the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment