By Sunday Etuka, Abuja
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), has inaugurated an Inter-ministerial task team shouldered with the responsibility of ensuring the full implementation of the findings and recommendations of its audit reports.
NEITI’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji who inaugurated the inter-ministerial task team on Monday at the NEITI House in Abuja, noted that the IMTT is a very important aspect of the global EITI process in Nigeria, being a decision made by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) after the release of the first NEITI oil and gas report that covered years 1999-2004.
He explained that “the essence of this task team is to study very carefully each NEITI industry report of the Oil, Gas and Solid minerals sectors as well as the Fiscal Allocation and Statutory Disbursement (FASD) report, map out the key findings and recommendations in these reports and identify the agencies that are responsible, to carry out the remedial actions as recommended by the Independent Administrators”.
According to him, IMTT is also expected to map out strategies that will track and report on the progress made towards the implementation of the findings and recommendations in the NEITI reports.
The objective, he noted was to ensure that NEITI does not just publish reports that gather dust on the shelves of the agency, but that the findings of these reports help to deepen government oversight and reform of the oil, gas and mining sectors for productivity, transparency and accountability in a manner that provides the greatest good for the greatest number of Nigerians who are the ultimate beneficiaries of the natural resources endowed in the country.
He further explained that “NEITI has envisaged that the reforms that are taking place in Nigeria’s extractive sector especially, the implementation of the Solid Minerals Roadmap and the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) would have taken over the work of the IMTT, but recent developments have clearly shown that the IMTT has come to stay and remains relevant due to its unique composition and responsibility.
“The last EITI validation and the recent international mission conducted by the EITI in Nigeria, equally identified the need for the IMTT and reinforced NEITI’s position that the task team should be invigorated and strengthened to help oversee the implementation of NEITI reports recommendations.
“NEITI is therefore convinced that the IMTT framework is better positioned to meet the challenges identified in the governance framework that has been put in place for the extractive sector.
“NEITI is also of the view that the achievements and impacts it has recorded in the sector will be tracked and documented under the framework of the IMTT. This is against the background that the IMTT structure will support in tracking and measurement of where we are, where we should be and how we could get there”, he said.
The NEITI boss who said, the agency has since commenced the conduct of its 2022/2023 industry reports of the Oil, Gas and Solid Minerals sector, affirmed that “the scope of coverage is very wide and the outcome of this very important industry reports covering companies doing business in both sectors will be very insightful for the government, the legislature, the civil society and the international development partners as well as investors interested in investing in Nigeria’s extractive sector”.
While disclosing the determination of the agency to publish the 2022-2023 reports by September, 2024, the ES stated that the transparency and accountability of transactions and operations of the sector are key to making investment decisions concerning the sector.
He, therefore, called on all the covered entities that will be covered by the report to give the agency and team their full cooperation.
