The Department of Petroleum Resources has said it has surpassed its revenue target for the first half of 2013 by over N86bn by generating over N470bn within the period.
This came to light during an oversight visit by the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) to the DPR headquarters in Lagos on Monday.
The Chairman of the committee, Mr. Muraina Ajibola, who joined the DPR Director, Mr. George Osahon, to address newsmen after a close-door session, said the Federal Government-approved revenue target for the department for the period under review was N383.75bn.
He, however, commended the department for surpassing the target by generating over N470bn for the government in the first half of the year.
Ajibola said, “I am happy to tell Nigerians that after proper scrutiny of its papers, the DPR has generated over N470bn in revenue in the first half of 2013. Of course, this clearly shows that the agency exceeded its target by a total sum of N86bn.
“Except for the capital implementation of the 2013 budget, where the performance appears a bit low, the agency is generally doing well in revenue generation.”
In view of this, Ajibola urged the DPR to look at ways of improving its internal revenue generation to boost its operations in the face of growing operational expenses.
The lawmaker asked the department to forward to the committee a proposal on how improved IGR could be achieved, while promising the committee’s support in ensuring that the DPR was adequately funded by the government.
Ajibola, who condemned the increasing spate of oil theft in the country, called on the Federal Government to implement the House’s resolutions on oil theft.
Giving details of the recommendations, he said the House had recommended that the government should assign a dedicated telephone line to security agencies and make it available to the public.
This, he said, would enable members of the public to assist the security operatives in curbing oil theft and vandalism by alerting them whenever pipelines were been tampered with.
Ajibola said the House had also recommended that the Federal Government should provide improved and adequate security at all export terminals in the country in order to prevent stolen crude oil from being exported out of Nigeria.
The lawmaker also advised the Federal Government to engage more with the host communities and tasked them with greater roles in protecting the pipelines; saying this would help in reducing vandalism in the country.