.
Massive theft "involves crooked politicians, security forces, oil industry
personnel and oil traders....Officials and private actors
disguise theft through manipulation of meters and shipping documents....Proceeds are laundered through banks and businesses in African states,
as well as the U.S., Britain, Switzerland, India, Singapore and the
Persian Gulf."...
10/18/13,
"Nigeria's booming oil theft racket costs $1B a month," upi.org, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
"Royal
Dutch Shell is selling off four of its onshore Nigerian oil blocks
because of the constant theft of large volumes oil from its pipelines,
officials said.
The move highlights the West African state's growing
battle with criminal syndicates that are stealing an average of 100,000
barrels of crude a day. That costs the continent's second largest
economy after South Africa up to $1 billion a month, a criminal
enterprise on an industrial scale that officials say rivals the
narcotics trade as the world's most lucrative crime.
Oil industry
officials and community workers say this massive theft of Nigeria's key
resource involves crooked politicians, security forces, oil industry
personnel and oil traders.
There are also militant groups
operating in the oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta, a labyrinth of
swamps and creeks that provide cover for the complex network of crime.
"There's
a sophisticated organization," says Philip Mshelbila, Shell's chief of
communications in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital. "Clearly it's not
just local. There has to be a wide network."
Mela Oforibika, a
lawyer and head of the delta community of Bolo in southern Nigeria
that's the center of the oil theft network, asserts that the military is
paid off by crime syndicates.
"The pay-off system to the armed
forces and police ... is well organized ... Most army have a lifestyle
that you can't explain," he said.
Stealing oil from pipelines or
other facilities is known as "bunkering." Officials say it's now so
pervasive, in the delta particularly, that there's little interest in
trying to stamp it out. And, with the fix supposedly running all the way
up to senior levels of government, there's little political will to do
anything despite the ruinous economic impact the oil theft has in a
deeply corrupt country long torn by tribal, regional and religious
rivalries.
Since Shell, which pioneered Nigeria's oil business,
started production from the Oloibiri field in 1958, other majors like
Exxon Mobil, Texaco and Gulf Oil have moved in.
Nigeria
historically was Africa's foremost producer, although Angola, further
south down the Atlantic coast, is now producing more crude oil.
In
recent years, Nigeria's onshore production has been slipping, in large
part because of "bunkering," but also because the older fields are
running down.
Initially, most of Nigeria's production was onshore,
75 percent in the 1970s, But now offshore wells are overtaking the
land-based fields and deepwater drilling is now predominant -- and
harder to steal from.
Because of the oil theft, Nigerian production is running 400,000 barrels per day below its capacity of 2.5 million bpd.
The damage inflicted by the oil thieves has forced some companies in the delta to shut down pipelines for long periods.
On
Oct. 10, Shell closed its Trans-Niger pipeline, capable of pumping
150,000 bpd to the giant refinery at Bonney, because it had been holed
so many times by thieves.
It's one of the most sabotaged pipelines in the world and that was the third shutdown in four months.
High
oil prices in recent months, usually around $100-$110 a barrel, have
blunted the impact of the oil thievery. Oil and gas account for around
70 percent of the country's revenues.
But Nigeria's not out of
the woods yet, and is unlikely to be despite some expansion in non-oil
sectors such as telecoms and construction.
A recent report by the
Royal Institute for International Affairs, a London think tank, said
Nigeria's oil is being stolen not just from the pipelines, but tank
farms, export terminals, refinery storage, ports and even wellheads.
"Officials and private actors disguise theft through manipulation of meters and shipping documents," the study observed.
"Proceeds
are laundered through world financial centers and used to buy assets in
and outside Nigeria, polluting markets and financial institutions
overseas, and creating reputational, political and legal hazards."
Much
of the stolen oil is loaded on barges and small ships in the delta's
creeks and carried to tankers offshore in the Gulf of Guinea, where it's
taken to neighboring countries in West Africa, or further afield to
Brazil, China, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Balkans where it's
processed by international crime syndicates.
RIIA says the
proceeds are laundered through banks and businesses in African states,
as well as the U.S., Britain, Switzerland, India, Singapore and the
Persian Gulf."
=====================
7/5/12,
"Mongolia’s task: avoid Nigerian resource curse," Reuters, Martin Hutchinson
"Current estimates are that more than $1 billion of oil per month is
stolen from the Niger Delta fields and corruption remains endemic even
under well-meaning President Goodluck Jonathan. Nigeria ranks 133rd on
the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index and 143rd on Transparency
International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. True, high oil prices
reversed 40 years of decline in living standards through 2000. And while
GDP growth is slowing, it’s still expected to run at 6 percent to 7
percent this year. But with inflation in double digits
and government
expenditure budgeted to exceed revenue by 31 percent in 2012, Nigeria’s
situation is unstable."
========================
Half of Nigeria's oil revenue has disappeared via theft and corruption:
April 2009,
"Has globalization failed in Nigeria?" Yale.edu, Michael Watts
"Since 1960, over $600 billion in oil revenues has flowed into Nigeria’s
coffers; it represents an opportunity unavailable to much of the
developing world. These petrodollars could have been spent
productively, could have transformed agriculture, laid the foundation
for an effective public education system, provided much-needed
infrastructure. Yet, according to the World Bank, of that $600 billion,
$300 billion has simply disappeared into overseas bank accounts through
theft and corruption."...
===============
"Public office is so lucrative that
people will kill to get it. Nigeria has 36 state governors, 31 of whom
are under federal investigation for corruption."
.
8/8/2013, "A country so corrupt it would be better to burn our aid money," UK Daily Mail, Michael Burleigh
"Nigeria is
not quite the most corrupt country on earth. But according to
Transparency International, which monitors international financial
corruption, it is not far off — coming a shameful
172nd worst among the
215 nations surveyed. Only countries as dysfunctional, derelict and downright dangerous as Haiti or the Congo are more corrupt.
In
theory, Nigeria’s 170 million-strong population should be prospering in
a country that in recent years has launched four satellites into space
and now has a burgeoning space programme.
Moreover, Nigeria is sitting on crude
oil reserves estimated at 35 billion barrels (enough to fuel the entire
world for more than a year), not to mention 100 trillion cubic feet of
natural gas.
It also
manages to pay its legislators the highest salaries in the world, with a
basic wage of £122,000, nearly double what British MPs earn and many
hundreds of times that of the country’s ordinary citizens.
No wonder the ruling elite can afford
luxury homes in London or Paris, and top-end cars that, across West
Africa, have led to the sobriquet ‘Wabenzi’, or people of the
Mercedes-Benz.
Yet 70 per
cent of Nigerians live below the poverty line of £1.29 a day, struggling
with a failing infrastructure and chronic fuel shortages because of a
lack of petrol refining capacity, even though their country produces
more crude oil than Texas.
And that poverty is not for want of assistance from the wider world.
Since gaining its independence in
1960, Nigeria has received $400 billion (£257 billion) in aid — six
times what the U.S. pumped into reconstructing the whole of Western
Europe after World War II.
Nigeria
suffers from what economists call the ‘resource curse’ — the paradox
that developing countries with an abundance of natural reserves tend to
enjoy worse economic growth than countries without minerals and fuels.
The
huge flow of oil wealth means the government does not rely on taxpayers
for its income, so does not have to answer to the people — a situation
that fosters rampant corruption and economic sclerosis because there is
no investment in infrastructure as the country’s leaders cream off its
wealth.
Corruption in Nigeria is endemic —
from parents bribing teachers to get hold of exam papers for their
children through clerks handed ‘dash’ money to get round the country’s
stifling bureaucracy to policemen taking money for turning a blind eye.
It is at its most blatant, perhaps, in
the oil industry, where 136 million barrels of crude oil worth
$11 billion (£7.79 billion) were illegally siphoned off in just two
years from 2009 to 2011, while hundreds of millions of dollars in
subsidies were given to fuel merchants to deliver petrol that never
materialised.
Whether the
country is ruled by civilians or soldiers, who invariably proclaim their
burning desire to eradicate civilian corruption, it makes absolutely no
difference.
The military
ruled Nigeria between 1966 and 1979 and from 1983 to 1999, but if
anything, corruption was worse when they were in charge since they had a
habit of killing anyone threatening to expose them.
It is estimated that since 1960, about
$380 billion (£245 billion) of government money has been stolen —
almost the total sum Nigeria has received in foreign aid.
And that even when successive governments attempt to recover the stolen money, much of this is looted again.
In
essence, 80 per cent of the country’s substantial oil revenues go to
the government, which disburses cash to individual governors and
hundreds of their cronies, so effectively these huge sums remain in
the hands of a mere 1 per cent of the Nigerian population.
Political
power is universally regarded as a chance to reap the fortunes of
office by the ruling elite and its families and tribes.
The most egregious example was
President Sani Abacha, a military dictator who ruled in the Nineties and
accrued a staggering $4 billion (£2.58 billion) fortune by the time he
died of a heart attack while in bed with two Indian prostitutes at his
palace in the nation’s capital, Abuja, in 1998. Abacha’s business
associates did nicely, too — one of them deposited £122 million in a
Jersey offshore account after selling Nigerian army trucks for five
times their worth.
Public office is so lucrative that
people will kill to get it. Nigeria has 36 state governors, 31 of whom
are under federal investigation for corruption.
In
one of the smallest states, a candidate for the governorship occupied
by one Ayo Fayose received texts signed by the ‘Fayose M Squad’ — and it
was clear the ‘M’ was for ‘Murder’ when they stabbed and bludgeoned a
third candidate to death in his own bed.
By the end of its term of office, the British Government will have handed over £1 billion in aid to Nigeria
.
Given
the appalling levels of corruption in that nation, this largesse is
utterly sickening — for the money will only be recycled into bank
accounts in the Channel Islands or Switzerland.
Frankly, we might as well flush our cash away or burn it for all the good it’s doing for ordinary Nigerians."
.
No comments:
Post a Comment