THE House of Representatives said it is reviewing the Act which set up the Petroleum Technology Development Fund(PTDF). According to Mr. Bassey Otu House Committee chairman on Petroleum Resources (Upstream), PDTF will no longer have access to the proceeds from the sale of crude oil blocks when the review is completed.
Apart from bringing PTDF under the purview of appropriation, the draft amendment bill being put together by the   Committee also seeks to reposition the agency as a more effective vehicle to develop local content in the oil and gas industry.
Otu made the statements during an interactive session with the management of PTDF in Abuja. The PTDF Act promulgated in 1973 provides that the agency will be funded by proceeds from the sale of crude oil blocks, otherwise known as signature bonus.
At that time, the provision was convenient as the funds generated by the government from oil block sale averaged about $10m or $20m. But as the immediate past executive secretary of the fund, Alhalji Kabir Mohammed confirmed, the proceeds however skyrocketed to over $1bn in 2005; $582m in 2006; and $587m in 2007 due to innovations introduced in the auction of the blocks.
The bloated funds exceeded by far what PTDF needed for its activities and the existence of the slush funds, which were not appropriated partly accounted for the fraudulent misapplication which tainted former President Olusegun Obasanjo, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and many other top public functionaries in 2006.
It was gathered in Abuja that Obasanjo had sent a bill to the National Assembly in 2006 seeking to amend PTDF’s source of revenue but later withdrew it so that more amendments could be made to incorporate the training of manpower in the solid minerals sector and change the name to Petroleum and Solid Minerals Development Fund.