The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has commended the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) for making oil and gas data available and transparent.
The NUPRC Head of Corporate Communications and Media, Eniola Akinkuotu, in a statement on Thursday, said the Statistician-General of the Federation, Adeyemi Adeniran, gave the commendation when he visited the commission headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday.
Why the data matters
According to the statement, Mr Adeniran, who was accompanied by top management of the NBS, said oil and gas contribute significantly to Nigeria’s economy and thus cannot be ignored in data collation.
He noted that the NBS is not only the central custodian of data in Nigeria but is also the apex agency responsible for developing, managing, and disseminating official statistics to guide government policies and national development.
This, he said, is done in collaboration with all 774 local governments, the 37 sub-nationals including the FCT, academia, multilateral organisations, non-governmental organisations and other federal agencies.
He said since the NUPRC is the custodian of all upstream oil and gas data, the NBS cannot effectively carry out its mandate without the help of the commission.
Call for collaboration
Mr Adeniran therefore called for a deeper collaboration between both institutions.
“If we don’t get data on our oil and gas sector, we cannot release data on Gross Domestic Product (GDP). I want to commend the commission because, for years, there are basic data that we have been getting from the commission.
“So, we came to appreciate you for what you are doing because without this data, the government will not have the compass to drive the economy,” the statistician-general said.
The NBS boss therefore named a team from the institution that will interact more closely and regularly with the commission, especially with regard to data on crude production, gas reserves, oil spill incidents and exploration and production companies.
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“Presently, we are implementing the Integrated System of Administrative Statistics where we have onboarded 15 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) for us to be able to exchange data seamlessly through digital platforms.
“We are compiling Petroleum National Accounting, which is under the Natural Capital Accounting system. So, we require a lot of data to build this,” he said.
In her remarks, the Commission Chief Executive, Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, said that data had become almost impossible to do anything without.
Appreciating the work of the NBS, Mrs Eyesan said the NUPRC releases data regularly in line with the Petroleum Industry Act, which is often published on the commission’s website.
“As government agencies, we must morph into the point where we automate our systems and then integrate,” she said.
