 The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has said that the nation has lost 619.7 million barrels of good oil valued at 46.1 billion Naira or 16.25 trillion Naira in 12 years, from 2009 to 2020. It also welcomed the decision of the federal government to set up a special investigative panel on oil theft and losses in Nigeria, describing it as a bold, courageous, and timely. Given the havoc the menace had wreaked in oil production and the country's revenue generation, we will be looking at that on the show today. Plus, the International Monetary Phone IMF and its most recent edition of the World Economic Outlook lowered its global growth forecast for this year and next. Well according to its baseline growth forecast, the global economy expected to grow by 2.8 percent in 2023 from 3.4 percent in 2020 before recovering to 3.0 percent in 2024. We're looking at that on the show today. Welcome to Business Insight and Plus TV Africa. I am Justin Acadone. The mining Niger's ability to derive value from its status as an oil producing country. An executive secretary of NETI, Dr. Wunaya Oji said the findings and recommendations on tackling crude oil theft have been submitted to the presidential committee on crude oil theft, in which NETI also served as a member. Now energy analyst Omono Okonko joins me right now to look at these developing issues. Many thanks for joining me, Omono. Good morning. All right, it is indeed my pleasure. Now let's start by asking this now. NETI policies brief on crude oil theft and the data shows that between 2009 and 2020, Nigeria lost 619.7 million barrels of crude oil valued at $46.16 billion or $16.25 trillion. Nair, what is the economic opportunity cost of this loss? Okay, so first of all, in 2022, President Buhari made a presentation to the National Assembly for the budget for 2022-2022. And that amount was $16 trillion. So you can imagine for 2022 budget, that's the exact same amount that was missing to crude oil theft within that period. Now aside from that, what could this money have been used for? Let's start with oil. We could have used part of that money to at least repair our refineries. I mean the worry, cardina, and protocols refineries. We could also use part of that money to develop more refineries. Right? And also on oil, on the oil sector, we could also use part of that money to clean up organized oil communities that have been, you know, that have been facing a loss of environmental issues because of crude oil theft. Now these people have been facing, they've been, you know, talking to the media and solving all these things. And they tell you, okay, we cannot farm, we cannot fish because our waters, our rivers are corrupted. Right? Part of that money could have been used to clean up these communities. Now let's go to natural gas. We have lots of natural gas in Nigeria. But guess what? We are not able to process this natural gas because we do not have the processing facilities. We could have used part of that money to create or rather to build infrastructure so we can make use of our natural gas. We can convert raw gas to liquefied petroleum gas, which is cooking gas. We could have used this also to transform raw gas also to liquefied natural gas and compress natural gas. Now let's look at other critical factors of the economy. Education. How many out of two children do we have in Nigeria right now? Million, over 20 million out of two children in Nigeria. Now we could have this part of that money to form education. Let's talk about healthcare. We are trying to say, oh, doctors should relocate to other, to develop countries. Right? But we are not addressing the issue that are making these doctors to travel out of Nigeria. Right? These doctors are smart. They are skilled. They don't be impossible with the little resources available in hospitals. Right? Look at the primary healthcare centers we have across the country. They are all in a solid state. Now we could have used part of that money to get equipment for doctors to work with. Right? And if we talk about insecurity, we are having a lot of problems with all kinds of terrible goods arising from all parts of the country. Right? Security agencies are lacking arms. Right? We could have used part of that money to buy arms. All right. I know it's really, really limitless. But for the sake of time, let's just look at some critical recommendations that NETI actually brought. It is asking for tracking of Nigeria's crude swap, the crude swap deals. How far do you think this can actually go in, actually stemming the tide? Well, it can go a long way if these recommendations are taken from just paper to action steps. Right? I remember for a number of years now, NETI has recommended a lot of action steps when it comes to food access, when it comes to field subsidies, but at the end of the day, none of this is implemented. Nigeria has an implementation problem that is established. Right? So it's recommending that we need to track crude swap deals. Right? It's a fantastic recommendation, but we need to be implemented at the end of the day. We need all stakeholders to work together to make sure that there is transparency in the oil and gas sector, as well as the quality of the mineral sector. So it's not just about writing it on paper. It is also about taking those recommendations and putting it into action steps. And another thing, NETI has always advocated for transparency in Nigeria's oil and gas sector. That is a given. Right? Now, if really the oil and gas sector is operating or rather operators in the oil and gas sector are working and making sure that Nigerians are aware of what they are doing, guess what? We do trust. And that engender goes in the sector. And another reason that we are having crude swap deals is because our refineries are not working. Now, in 2024, Dan will say refinery is supposed to come on stream. Right? If that comes on stream and our Wari, Kaduna, and Kotaku refineries are working, and private companies are able to set up modular refineries and buy the oil in myra, not in dollars, because that's a problem for them. I mean, we'll be able to, you know, reduce crude oil swap deals to some level. As we round off now, for sake of time, I'm on now, let's talk about this proposal of the federal government concerning the removal of a fuel subsidy. Specifically, it is actually budgeting a whopping some of 800 million US dollars as palliative. Do you think that it is, that is enough in itself to cushion the aftermath of the removal? It's not enough, obviously. Even with a minister of finance, Dr. Zainab Ahmed, she has admitted to that that it's not enough. They are looking for other ways to make sure that they have more funds to invest. Now, I would be more comfortable if that same money, or other monies that are going to be realized from this plan, are put into the repair and rehabilitation of our refinery, of our local refineries, number one. And I will also be more comfortable if this money is put into transportation subsidy, not from Abuja, but from, from, from state. You know, if your target is 774 local government areas in the country, you need to start from the state, not Abuja. So if you want people to be able to say, oh, well, the government has provided a transportation subsidy for me and my family, you do not start from Abuja. You start from the state. The states are willing to know all their local government areas. They are willing to understand the, you know, every state is different. They are willing to understand the realities of their state. So if you, if you want to do transportation subsidy, it's better to start from the state. So every local government area and people living in those areas are able to benefit from subsidies, or rather from transportation subsidies. So I would be more comfortable if it was, if the money was put into that, instead of just saying, well, you take this money, you take this money, it's not going to go anywhere. That's the truth. All right. Thank you, Amona. I wish we had more time to look at them, all of the other issues, but then I will bring you some of the time as I'm, you know, the information and of course this development continue. We have been speaking with energy analyst Amona Okonkur with NARA metrics. Thanks for being a part of the program. Would you appreciate your insights? Thank you. All right. It is still business insight and plus TV Africa. We still have the economic outlook for the world coming up next before that would just give you a bit of an insight on how to write an informal business proposal. Stay with us.