At a time the Federal Government is clamouring for plugging of leakages to address economic shortfalls, bureaucracy caused by absence of weights and measures are making the country incur an operational loss of $25 billion annually in the oil and gas sector alone.
A break-down of these losses shows that $7.5 billion is lost yearly to 10 percent error margin, usually occasioned by indirect losses due to measurements not controlled by Legal Metrology of the Federal Government, while $17.4 billion (400,000 barrels per day) is stolen, owing to absence of credible measurement in the industry, according to experts.
Absence of measures, which brings about non-adherence to lawful practices, has also robbed the Federal Government of several billions in other sectors and consequently cuts down on oil revenues.
Experts say inability to have any standard measurement in the sector has had a severe consequence of encouraging corruption by putting too much money in the pockets of few when several states are unable to pay workers’ salaries for months.
“As the world celebrates the World Metrology Day today, we want the incoming administration to focus on the issue of institutionalising maintenance of standards and fair trade in all trade transactions in the oil and gas sector of the economy in line with global best practices,” Yabagi Yusuf Sani, CEO, Nigeria Legal Metrology System in the Federal Ministry of Industry Trade and Investment, told BusinessDay in an interview.
Standardisation and measurements are not important to oil and gas sector alone, but are also key to manufacturing, aviation, health and agriculture, among others, say experts. They safeguard lives and protect the integrity of nations.
Joseph Odumodu, director-general, Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), said Nigeria needed to create a robust infrastructure that will guarantee conformity assessment and end the practice of continuing to pay salaries of foreigners.
“Metrology, which is the science of measurements, is key to achieving 30 percent Gross Domestic Product for the manufacturing sector,” Odumodu said at the 2015 World Metrology Day held in Lagos.
“If Nigeria is interested in giving manufacturing 30 percent; if we want to diversify and fight corruption; if we want to identify the number of barrels of oil we sell in a day, we must identify with metrology,” he said.
In the oil sector, overhead wells and gathering fields which are not metred, thus making activities in upstream and the downstream sectors opaque. In the health sector, many facilities used give wrong results as they are not calibrated and unfit for use, if the country meets the international standards.
In the international trade sector, absence of local weights and measures has continued to make other countries turn down products coming from Nigeria.
“Without metrology, we cannot export; we cannot compete and our economy will remain in a shambles,” said Joseph Sikuade, director, Weights and Measures, SON.
“We have killed ourselves in hospitals owing to absence of metrology. Nigerians must learn that anything they cannot measure, they cannot manage,” Sikuade said.
Analysts further argue that accurate measurement known as legal metrology is a key factor in ensuring that all trade transactions in all sectors of the Nigerian economy are accurate, fair and legal, in line with global best practices.
They say there cannot be quality without control, calibration, accredited laboratories, traceability, standards and metrology.
ODINAKA ANUDU & Harrison Edeh
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