As much as N5trillion is lost by Nigeria every year to the activities of crude oil thieves, denying the country the benefit of its natural resources, the House of Representatives said on Thursday.

To this end, the House resolved to set up an Adhoc committee to investigate the volume of crude oil extracted from the nation’s onshore and offshore wells on daily basis.

The Committee is further mandated to carry out an investigation on the damages done to communities when there is crude oil spillage and ascertain the quantity of crude oil that is stolen on a daily basis and the people responsible for the theft and report back in eight (8) weeks for further legislative action.

These decisions followed the adoption of a motion on ‘Crude Oil Theft in Nigeria, presented by Chukwuma Umeoji (APGA, Anambra).

According to Umeoji, “Nigeria loses about 5 trillion Naira yearly from oil theft an amount which the Government desperately needs to finance the budget”.

“About 22 million barrels of crude oil counting for about 1.3 trillion naira loss occurs in every quarter of the year”, he said.

The Ad-hoc Committee headed by Peter Akpatason (APC, Edo) is to determine the volume of crude oil extracted in the country on a daily basis and the quantity sold at the international markets and the quantity consumed locally.

The House also issued a three-month ultimatum asking the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to direct all Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) to pay, all outstanding debts owed all healthcare providers in Nigeria.

It also urged the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) to ensure that private Medical Practitioners should, as a matter of urgency register their clinics with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) as accredited health providers of medical services.

As a result, the House, therefore, mandated the Committees on Health Institutions and Healthcare Services to carry out a holistic review of the NHIS to encourage more participation by Nigerians with a view to attaining the Universal Health Coverage for Nigerians and report back within six (6) weeks for further legislative action.

These resolutions followed the adoption of a motion during plenary following motion on notice entitle, ‘Failure of the National Health Insurance Scheme to Function Optimally, moved by Valentine Ayika (PDP, Anambara) and five others.

Presenting the motion on behalf of others, Ayika noted that the NHIS was established by an Act of the National Assembly to ensure that every Nigerian has access to quality and affordable health care service through the provision of affordable health insurance.

He stated that the Scheme has a Presidential mandate to achieve Universal Health Coverage by 2015 but has failed in that regard, as available information shows that it currently boasts of a little over 6 million enrollees as at 2019 despite regular budgetary allocations.

Ayika added that, “50% of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund which represents 1% of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Government available for the Scheme, part of which was released in May 2019, yet the scheme still fell short of its targeted objectives”.

“Despite the importance of the Scheme towards the attainment of Universal Health Coverage for Nigerians, it does have a substantive Executive Secretary, but has been under the management of an ‘Overseeing Director’ appointed from the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, and this has affected many critical and important operations of the Scheme.

“Non-approval of the 2017/2018 Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) reaccreditation exercise report which has those HMOs not fit for operations but have continued to provide services despite their deficiencies;

“Non-approval of the 2018 Staff promotion exercise; with the likely consequent delay in the conduct of the 2019 exercise with the attendant staff dissatisfaction; non-pragmatic approach to dealing with contentious issues with various stakeholders; delays in approval and release of revised guidelines, drug and professional service price lists which have been long overdue for review, and failure to conduct the periodic quality assurance and improvement exercises on Health Care Providers and Health Maintenance Organisations,” the lawmaker said. (Independent)

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