By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief &  Michael Eboh

Meanwhile, in spite of moves by the Federal Government to set up a single regulatory authority for the petroleum industry with the planned scrapping of the existing regulators in the industry, the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, received the highest combined allocation for the Ministry of Petroleum Resources in the 2017 budget.

Specifically, according to the budget proposal obtained from the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources was allocated N69.55 billion, while the DPR and the PPPRA received N42.91 billion, representing 61.7 per cent of the total allocation to the Ministry.

President Muhammadu Buhari presenting the 2017 Budget before a joint session of the National Assembly on Wednesday, December 14, 2016.

A breakdown of the allocations to the petroleum ministry showed that the DPR received N33.76 billion, with N32.79 billion allocated for recurrent expenditure and N1.03 billion for capital expenditure, while the PPPRA received N9.15 billion, with N7.82 billion and N1.33 billion earmarked for recurrent and capital expenditures respectively.

Other allocations in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, included: Petroleum Training Institute, PTI, N12.77 billion, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDM, N3.653 billion; Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Agency, NNRA, N7.535 billion, while the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources Headquarter was allocated N2.86 billion.

Of the total allocation of N69.55 billion proposed for the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, N62.46 billion is to be used for recurrent expenditure, representing 89.8 per cent of the total, while N7.093 billion was earmarked for capital expenditure, representing 10.2 per cent of total allocations.