NEITI Targets Domestic Resources Mobilisation in New Oil, Gas, Mining Audits

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) yesterday said the aim of its ongoing nationwide audit of the oil, gas and mining companies is to enhance domestic resources mobilisation.
The Executive Secretary of NEITI, Dr Ogbonnaya Orji, stated this in Port Harcourt while declaring open nationwide sensitisation workshops on the conduct of the 2022-2023 industry reports of the oil, gas and mining sectors for companies in the South-South and South-East zones.
Orji explained that domestic resource mobilisation had become key to NEITI interventions in the industry as part of its mandates of enthroning transparency and accountability driven by public disclosure and blocking leakages.

The workshops which began in Lagos last week continued in Port Harcourt to acquaint the agencies and companies covered by the report in the affected zones with the templates designed for the exercise, a statement by the Deputy Director/Head Communications & Stakeholders Management, Obiageli Onuorah, said.
“The objectives of these industry reports are to establish and make public revenue flows through investment among the major players in the oil, gas and mining sectors, examine the financial, physical and process issues from, within and among the companies and relevant government agencies.
“The reports will specifically undertake special verification and validation of information and data on the payments made by the companies to government entities as well as government receipts.

“Other areas will include quantities and volume of crude produced, balances payable or receivable on certain financial transactions, taxes, royalties on project-by-project basis, social contributions and investment flows in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry,” Orji emphasised.
Similarly, the 2022-2023 solid minerals report, Orji said  will disclose data and information on quantities of solid minerals mined, quarried, processed, exported and imported, track the extractive industries sector fund collected by various government agencies to the Federation Account.

According to him, it will reconcile the payments made by major players (companies/entities) to government in the sector during the period under review in the form of royalty, ground rents/annual surface rents, taxation, levies, among others.
He said under Section 2 of the NEITI Act, 2007, NEITI has a responsibility of ensuring due process, transparency in the payments made by all extractive industry companies to the federal government, monitor and ensure accountability in the revenue receipts of federal government from extractive industry companies.
Other areas to be covered by the reports are disclosures on environment, social and gender impact assessments of extractive activities and employment data in the industry.

The Executive Secretary assured of NEITI’s commitment to work closely with the companies and government under the EITI framework to create good business environment that encourages the inflow of more foreign direct investments into the extractive sector.
For this to happen, the executive secretary “encouraged all companies to embrace transparency, accountability and corporate social responsibility in conformity with the EITI standards in other to build the confidence of investment partners”.
He appealed to all government agencies as well as extractive industry companies covered by the reports to fully cooperate with the process as required by Law and within the timelines set for the completion of the exercise.

“It is our belief that the next round of reports, which is currently underway and would be ready by September 2024, would provide clear indicators on the level of progress and impact of the implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) in the oil and gas industry and the solid minerals roadmap,” Orji reaffirmed.

He further reiterated that NEITI has opened up engagements with the National Assembly to track the implementation of the PIA.

Orji added that the theme for the 2022-2023 oil and gas report is: “Impact of the PIA on Domestic Resource Mobilisation”, while that of solid minerals is: “Unleashing Potential of the Solid Mineral Sector: Assessing the Nigeria Mining Roadmap”.