The Collapse of Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF) as an Agent of Innovative Development Programme in Nigeria

Abstract

In 1994, the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF) was created on grounds that increased petroleum products prices had the tendency to accentuate the inglorious dedicated account system, coupled with the corruption in the society. However, the agency was later scrapped because it was had no place in the constitution and operated as a parallel agency. The wide and impressive media publicity given to the activities and achievement of the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF) provides initial impetus that gingers the interest to carry out a critical study on the programme. Results showed that PTF performed creditably well in the achievement of its objectives, when compared with the conventional ministerial organizations. On cost effectiveness, the ratio of other ministries cost of project to that of PFT was 3.1. However, there were distributional inequity and gross imbalance in the projects executed by Petroleum PTF in various geo-political zones in the country.