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… laments, “We are now losing 250,000 barrels of crude oil a day”
Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State has appealed to the people of the state to bear with his administration over the state’s inability to afford to solve every problem, as it had done in the past.
Governor Okowa said the prevailing economic situation in the country had so much affected the state, but regretted that the people had refused to understand that things had gone wrong economically.
According to Okowa, not just economic recession that has affected the state badly, but also the activities of militants that have resulted in pipeline vandalism. This he said had brought the state to fourth position in the list of states that produce oil, “making it unable to export as it loses 250,000 barrels of crude oil a day.
“There were too many things that we did in the past which we cannot afford to do now. The things we can afford to do, we will do but too many things were done in the past which we cannot afford to do now because in this time of economic recession, situations are not the same.”
The governor, who spoke at a recent quarterly media interactive session held at the Government House, Asaba, said the state was receiving above N27 billion monthly but suddenly came down to N6 billion; “that shows that times are really difficult.
“Sometime last year, in May and June, we came down to N3 billion as a state and by the time Zenith Bank made its deductions we came down to N2.5 billion and we have a salary of N7.5 billion to pay.”
He added that in terms of revenue, oil prices have gone down because Delta State had been a theatre of war in terms of pipeline vandalism, but thank God that peace had returned. “I can definitely say that since the end of September till today, everything is peaceful,” he said.
He expressed hope that the vandalised pipelines owned by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) would be fixed, as according to him, it had not been fixed since February 2016, thereby making it impossible for exportation to take place resulting to huge loss of 250,000 barrels per day. He added that 80 percent of pipeline vandalism occurred in Delta State, thereby placing the state at fourth position as oil producing which was not its position in the past.
