The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, has said that the country loses 400,000 barrels of crude daily through oil theft.
He said this on Monday, when he paid a courtesy visit to Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo at the Government House, Owerri.
The minister who described the development as a “national emergency,” expressed regrets that the nation had fallen short of OPEC daily quota, from 1.8 million barrels to 1.4 million barrels, due to crude theft.
He said such huge economic loss was capable of crippling the nation’s economy, if not given the seriousness it deserved.
Sylva decried that the menace had persisted, in spite of efforts by the Federal and State Governments to arrest it, adding that it cannot be handled in Abuja alone.
He further pointed out that no investor would want to invest where there is incessant insecurity and vandalism of the infrastructure.
The minister, therefore, appealed to the stakeholders to collaborate to solve the problem.
In a remark, the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor, who was in the entourage, thanked Uzodimma for supporting the Armed Forces in the fight against the escalating criminality in the oil-producing areas in the South-East.
Irabor called on the State Government, stakeholders and communities to “be involved in the fight against oil theft to a reasonable percentage and leave the rest for the army”.
Responding, the governor gave the assurance that his administration would sustain its efforts to arrest the economic sabotage being perpetrated by pipeline vandals.
