The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) says its activities have been justified by the report of the committee on governance, transparency and accountability in the oil and gas sector.
Mr Ledum Mitee, the Chairman of NEITI’s National Stakeholders Working Group, said in a statement on Monday in Abuja that the report had further exposed the need to strengthen NEITI through necessary legislation.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the committee on governance, transparency and accountability in the oil and gas sector was set up by President Goodluck Jonathan in February.
The committee, which was headed by former EFCC chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, submitted its report last Friday.
Mitee, in the statement made available to NAN, said NEITI had over the years conducted three different cycles of industry audits spanning the period 1999 to 2004, 2005 and 2006 to 2008.
“As an agency statutorily set up to develop a framework for transparency and accountability in the management of resources from Nigeria’s extractive industries, especially oil and gas, NEITI has legitimate interest in not only the report, but the processes, its findings and the outcome.
“Apart from the earlier NEITI reports, the report of another round of comprehensive audit of the oil and gas sector from 2009 to 2011, which began in the year, is expected to be concluded by December 2012.’’
Mitee said that NEITI’s past audit reports had clearly identified financial, physical and process lapses.
“They also revealed a loss of some 2.6 billion US dollars due to under-payments, under-assessments, poor judgment in the computations of crude sales and other leakages only.
“Also, the reports equally showed that a total of 9.8 billion US dollars is outstanding recoverable fund due to the Federation Account from the companies.’’
The Working Group Chairman said NEITI had openly expressed concern that there was no sufficient effort to recover the funds from the companies by the affected relevant government agencies.???
“Even when the companies concerned have not shown any resistance to pay, there have not been sufficient efforts at recovery,’’ he said.
Mitee said NEITI industry audits had consistently identified the sector’s problems, proposed solutions and ways of implementing them.
“But the implementation of these recommendations and remediation issues have remained a major challenge in spite of NEITI’s efforts under the Inter-Ministerial Task Team set up by the Federal Government for these purposes,’’ he said.
Mitee said the Ribadu committee’s report was therefore not surprising and that it had rather followed the trend of NEITI audits.
“The report has re-opened a compelling and urgent case for necessary follow-through actions on remedial issues already identified and recommended by the extant NEITI reports.’’
He said NEITI views the series of on-going probes in the oil and gas sector as “most welcome fundamental steps towards actualising the global principles and objectives of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative which Nigeria subscribes to since 2003’’.?
Mitee however said some of the issues raised by the probes would have since been dealt with “if the remedial issues identified by NEITI’s audit reports had been dealt with or if NEITI had had the necessary enabling environment’’.
He said it was NEITI’s opinion that the Ribadu committee report had clearly exposed the need to further strengthen NEITI through necessary amendments to its enabling Act.
“This will give NEITI the necessary enforcement powers as well as visible steps to implement the findings and recommendations of audit reports,’’ Mitee added.
He said the ultimate lesson derivable from the present situation, ahead of the Ribadu committee report’s full publication and anticipated government action, was the need for co-ordinated efforts from all stakeholders.
“We all, that is, the media, civil society, companies, government and the public, need to see to the speedy passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) with clear contents and provisions.
“These contents and provisions are those that will bring about accountability, openness, competition, competence and integrity, as well as promote investment-friendly environment in the oil and gas industry,’’ Mitee said.??
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