NIGERIA can generate over $1billion yearly from gas resources if stakeholders do the right things.
Chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) Elias Mbam in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday said: “With the current dwindling revenue from oil, gas economy could be a safe haven for the country.”
To harness this monetary gain, Mbam has called on stakeholders to develop “the gas infrastructure with a view to harnessing more revenue from the sector to the Federation Account”.
The potential of gas to grow revenue generation into the Federation Account, he said, “is enormous and needs to be properly exploited”.
Mbam lamented: “The continuous flaring of gas in the country is not in the best interest of the nation giving that Nigeria “is blessed with an abundance of gas deposits measuring more than two trillion cubic tons, thereby making it the ninth largest country in gas reserves in the world”.
The RMAFC chief was unhappy that the country has not been able to utilise its enormous gas reserves, noting that “against the health hazard posed to the oil producing communities in Nigeria due to environmental pollution, flared gas in Nigeria could be converted and channelled to the economy where more than two million people could be employed while being utilised for industrial purposes such as power generation”.
Also on Wednesday, workers of government agencies–regulatory bodies, excluding the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) employed in the oil and gas sector, picketed the Federal Ministry of Finance demanding their three months’ salary arrears.
The workers said they were being owed because they had not been captured on the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS). They vowed to go on a three-day warning strike to drive home their request.
The workers, many of whom refused to give their names, said they were not opposed to the idea of IPPIS “but the peculiarities of the allowances in the sector have not been captured by IPPIS which is why we have not joined the platform”.
Dressed in red and chanting trade union songs, the protesting oil and gas workers vowed to remain at the main entrance of the ministry until an official comes to address them.
