Investigation reveal that the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), has submitted that even though financial accountability has improved, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) still has not explained alleged billions of dollars of missing revenue.
Reports have it that several energy producers have cooperated and complied with requirements to publish payments, NEITI has witnessed bottlenecks with the state-owned oil firm, aimed to assess and obtain needed financial transactions for publication. This information was disclosed by the executive secretary of the agency, Waziri Adio, monitored in an interview with Bloomberg.
Adio, posited, “The state oil company hasn’t explained what it did with at least $22.7 billion earned from the sale of oil licences and in dividends from its stake in the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Company over a 15-year period.”
Adding, “The sector is no longer the black hole that it once was, but we could still use more transparency,” Adio said. “Things are opening up. There could be more in the area of contracts, ownership
and expenditure transparency, but definitely there is some progress.”
When contacted to react on the development, NNPC spokesman, Ndu Ughamadu, didn’t respond to several calls on his mobile phone and text messages seeking his reactions.
NEITI was set up in 2004 after Nigeria acceded to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which requires international energy companies and governments involved in mining to publish all their payments.
Nigeria LNG is owned 49 per cent by NNPC, 25.6 per cent by Shell, 15 per cent by Total and 10.4 per cent by Eni.
Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari, pledged during his 2015 election campaign to fight widespread graft in the oil and gas industry, appointed Adio in February 2016 to head NEITI.
In its defence, Adio said NEITI’s annual audits have helped the government recover billions of dollars that would have been lost.
His words: “The NEITI law does not give us the power to compel compliance or to enforce our recommendations, But we have done our reports, with findings and recommendations, and we have shared them with government.”
Adding, “So far, the agency has produced reports covering the years from 1999 to 2015 and is working on those for 2016 and 2017, which are scheduled for public presentation in July and November.
Before the end of this year, NEITI plans “to automate our data collection process and be able to provide real-time data and real-time analysis.”
