BEVERLY HILLS, November 07, (THEWILL) – The Senate has tasked the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, to henceforth prepare and make available to it every month daily records of oil and gas production and sale in the country.
The Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) said the records should include those of petroleum industry activities, data on seismic activities, crude oil production, lifting, allocations, exports by destination and receipts, gas production, utilisation, sales, transmission and exports.
The Chairman of the committee, Senator Tayo Alasoadura, who led members to the DPR headquarters in Lagos on oversight function, said the data would give the upper chamber of the National Assembly an opportunity to have deeper knowledge of activities in the petroleum sector.
While decrying the failure by government agencies to provide information on their activities to the legislature, he said the trend must stop, adding that “The problem with us is that we don’t think the National Assembly is part of the government.
“I have always told people: take the National Assembly away from governance, there is no more democracy. There is the executive; there is legislature; and there is the judiciary. But it’s only when you have the legislature, which will act as a check on the executive, that there is democracy.
“So, whatever is worth doing for the executive must also be done for the legislature, so that at the end of the day, we will all understand and speak with one voice.”
Alasoadura, however, expressed satisfaction with the performance of the department, saying it had lived up to the expectations of the people.
According to him, “We are very impressed by what we saw. A lot of rumours fly around about the seeming incompetence of the DPR. But from all the efforts they are putting into getting the required results for this country in information gathering, going technical or going ballistic, let me put it that way, I think they are putting in their best.
“And I believe that in a few more years’ time, doing business in the oil industry in this country will be so transparent that even people will be able to read what is happening in the oil industry from their bedrooms and from their offices, and that will be a day for Nigeria.”
Alasoadura also said the Senate would seek additional funding for the DPR as what was made available to the department was inadequate to meet its targets for the ongoing year.
The committee also pledged to seek the amendment of the existing laws to raise the DPR’s workforce from the current 1,120 in order to enhance it efficiency.
In his remarks, the Director, DPR, Mr. Mordecai Ladan said that the department was actively working to launch an innovation that would enable it to monitor oil production, delivery to locations as well as compliance with fuel prices by filling stations from its offices.
He, however, pointed out that the operations of the department were being hampered by inadequate funding and workforce.
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