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Urges gas economy for improved accruals to Federation Account
BY COBHAM NSA, ABUJA – Nigeria’s continuous neglect of the gas sector is at a huge cost over one billion dollars loss in annually revenue.
And the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, (RMAFC) believes concerted efforts at target development of gas infrastructure will reverse the worrying trend and harness more income into the Federation Account from this potentially lucrative sector
Chairman of the Commission, Engineer Elias Mbam said the potentials of gas to revenue generation is enormous and needs to be properly exploited for the overall benefit of Nigeria.
Mbam stated that gas economy has the capacity of being a safe haven for Nigeria, projecting that the country can easily generate more than one billion dollars annually from the sector if all relevant stakeholders resolve to do the needful.
He cautioned against the endless flaring of gas in the country, saying the development is not in the best interest of Nigeria’s economic growth and development.
According to Mbam the current dwindling revenue from oil has made gas economy imperative for Nigeria, noting that the country is blessed with an abundance of gas deposits measuring more than two trillion cubic tons.
He stated that the statistics makes Nigeria the 9th largest country in gas reserves globally, but lamented that this huge natural resource has unfortunately not been adequately explored and utilized to grow the nation’s economy on a sustainable basis.
The RMAFC Chairman, whose comments were contained in a press statement in Abuja, observed that against the health hazard posed to oil producing communities in Nigeria due to environmental pollution, flared gas in Nigeria could be converted and channeled to grow the economy.
He explained that such positive development would create an opportunity to employ more than two million people, while also utilizing the resource for industrial purposes such as power generation.
