The Federal Government has set up a committee to harmonise oil and gas revenue and production data of government earnings from all sectors of the economy.

Tim Okon, Technical Adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, at the inaugural meeting of the committee in Abuja, on Tuesday said they would ensure that policymakers have access to reliable data.

He said that access to consistent set of data would facilitate enlightened decision to take place for growth and development.

Okon added that the petroleum fiscal consistency network was driven by three federal ministries: Finance, Petroleum Resources as well as Budget and National Planning.

He added that the team would be working with a number of government agencies to ensure the collection and presentation of accurate fiscal data.

“It would involve the different entities that are involved in collecting information or collecting revenue as the case may be and making sure that there is a consistent basis for the data collected and presented.

“The agencies we are dealing with include collection agencies such as the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), and various other entities,” he said.

Okon further noted that the network would look at the manner of the workings of key sectors of the Nigerian economy and the way in which they were modeled fiscally, as well as the manner in which the results are presented to decision makers.

“The team would look at how consistently we gather information, analyse the information and how we present the result of the analyses to aid policy makers. That is the essence of the committee.”