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Oil Theft: Senate Engages Foreign Experts To Track Illegal Vessels On High Seas

* Plans stakeholders public hearing
* Collaborates With Host Community Youth Leaders To Tackle Scourge
Sunday Aborisade in Abuja
The Senate has announced that it has invited international experts with capacity to track illegal vessels being used by oil bunkering barons to steal Nigeria’s crude oil from the Niger Delta region of the country.
The Chairman, Senate ad hoc Committee on Crude Oil Theft, Senator Ned Nwoko (APC Delta North), disclosed this Wednesday when he received the executives of the Youth Wing of the HOSTCOM and Pipelines Impacted States Council of Nigeria led by their President, Fiawei Emmanuel Pathfinder, in his office.
Nwoko said his committee would soon organise a public hearing comprising all stakeholders in the oil and gas sector, including policy makers, major industry players, security agencies, traditional institutions and youth groups across the region to discuss ways to address the disturbing cases of crude oil theft in Nigeria.
He said: “I can tell you straight away that we have been able to engage some international experts who have the capacity to trace movement of vessels, both legal ones and illegal ones.
“They (experts) will be able to also trace every payment that is attached to each vessel.
“They will trace them to wherever they are. It could be in New York. It could be in Marbella in Spain. It doesn’t matter where. We have gotten those who have the capacity to help us. First to retrieve those money that arose from stolen crude.
“And also to make sure that we curtail or minimize or stop, if possible, the instances of crude oil being stolen.
“There are many stakeholders. So we have actually about to commence public hearing. In the next week or so, you will see the advert in the papers and other videos. Inviting all the stakeholders.
“Stakeholders from the military, to the police, to the international oil companies, all of them, including the regulators, the NNPC, all of them and the shipping companies, the NIMASA and agencies like that. They will all be here.
“We are not leaving behind the host communities. You will all be there. So I like your second letter, which you didn’t read.”
He described his new responsibility as a very important national assignment and that his panel would not persecute anybody but would track all those who are involved in the illegal lifting of the nation’s crude oil.
Nwoko also said he got the assurances of the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, that there should be no sacred cows who should be spared in the course of the assignment.
According to him, “For me this is a very important national assignment. I understand the problems that we’re trying to solve. And I can assure you that with your support, and support of all the other stakeholders, we will achieve a great deal of success.
“I’m aware of the problems that the communities have faced over time. But you know, if all things were to work out well, the compensation or payments that host communities are meant to get, will be more if there’s more crude production.
“The more the production that we have, the more you people will be taken care of.
“I know that there are other issues about when the payments are made, or how they are made. But these are all part of what we’ll address.
“If the good communities are not protected and provided for, then there’s no point in abusing the people.”
He also pledged that his committee would look into the areas of organising and reforming the areas of local crude oil refining as it is being done in other civilized societies of the world.
“In fact, what we have agreed to do is to have some lasting solutions where those who have the skill to refine crude are given some kind of support.
“What kind of support am I talking about? I’ve been to many countries in the world. I’ve been to many. Almost everywhere.
“I have been to countries where they have small refineries. Almost smaller than the so-called modular refineries.
“Government pay for them to be established, and then they employ the youths. There are many abandoned oil wells, that are not economically viable for the big IOCs.
“They can build those small refineries around them and some other places. But governments will make sure they provide crude for refining. And the whole idea is to bring these young men and women into the formal economy.
“If we can do that, and get them away from damaging pipelines, away from damaging the environment, away from being hunted and killed by the military, we would have done a lot if we can resettle them,” he said.
Pathfinder, who led the HOSTCON Youth Council of Nigeria to the Senate, pledged to mobilise youths across the region to provide useful information that would enable the Nwoko-led panel succeed in its assignment.
The group also seized the occasion to honour the senator with its highest award called the ‘Credence of Honour’.
Pathfinder said: “We have unanimously agreed to make you the Patron of Host Communities Producing Oil Gas and Pipeline Impacted States Youth Council of Nigeria, (HOSTCON) YOUTH COUNCIL OF NIGERIA, because we believe in you that the narrative will change in our host communities and pipeline impacted communities as well.”