Nigeria has set up a committee to harmonise oil and gas revenue, production data and government earnings from all sectors of the economy.
Mr Tim Okon, Technical Adviser to the Minister of state for petroleum Resources Dr Ibe Kachikwu, at the inaugural meeting of the committee in Abuja, on Tuesday said they would ensure that policy makers have access to data.
He said that access to consistent set of data would facilitate enlightened decision to take place for growth and development.
He added that the petroleum fiscal consistency network was driven by three ministries, the Federal Ministry of Finance, Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.
He added that the team would be working with a number of government agencies to ensure the collection and presentation of accurate fiscal data.
“It would involve the different entities that are involved in collecting information or collecting revenue as the case may be and making sure that there is a consistent basis for the data collected and presented.
“The agencies we are dealing with include collection agencies such as the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and various other entities.” he said
Okon further noted that the network would look at the manner of the workings of key sectors of the Nigerian economy and the way in which they were modeled fiscally, as well as the manner in which the results are presented to decision makers.
“The team would look at how consistently we gather information, analyse the information and how we present the result of the analyses to aid policy makers. That is the essence of the committee.
“It is part of generally, reforms in the oil and gas sector. It is consistent with reforms that are going on; whether it is enhancing economic growth or just making sure that we make decisions based on analysis of information.” he added
He disclosed that the group would provide the technical basis for which technical estimates on oil revenue and production benchmark would be made without recourse to guesswork, and in liaison with the various parastatals of the Federal Government.
