By Obas Esiedesa, Abuja
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, yesterday, disclosed that the NNPC Limited, 69 companies and 12 government agencies were covered in its 2021 Oil and Gas Industry audit report.
The report of the audit which was laid before NEITI’s multi- stakeholders groups for approval in the absence of its board is due to be released in September.
NEITI’s board along with other Federal Government’s boards was dissolved by President Bola Tinubu on June 19, 2023.
Speaking at the opening of the meeting in Abuja, the Executive Secretary, NEITI, Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji also disclosed that 1,214 companies were covered in the 2021 Solid Minerals audit report.
He explained that the “EITI Standard which provides guidance to our operations requires that the Multi Stakeholders Group (MSG) which oversees the EITI reporting process and implementation in countries approve the industry reports produced before they are released to the public. However, in Nigeria, the MSG known as the National Stakeholders Working Group (NSWG) was among the Board of
MDAs dissolved by the President on June 19, 2023.
“After extensive consultation with the international secretariat, it was agreed that representatives of companies, civil society, media and government should be invited to review, deliberate and approve the reports.
“This is not the first time we are adopting this approach as you will recall that we had a similar experience when approving the 2019 Industry Reports immediately after my assumption of office. We had no Board then. The global EITi gave Nigeria a waiver and approved that NEITI should convene a multi-stakeholders’ roundtable to review and approve the release of the reports”.
The NEITI CEO said “the objectives of the reports were to establish the quantities of minerals produced, utilized in the country.
“The reports also sought to establish the revenue paid by oil, gas and mining companies and how much of such revenues were actually received into government coffers. Other areas of focus by NEITI are to identify investments made by the Federation or the Federal Government in the oil, gas and mining industries, track subsidy payments, company remittances and liabilities”.
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