The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has advocated a mechanism that will henceforth ensure prompt implementation of its reports and punish non-compliance.
To this end, the transparency initiative noted that it would this month sign various Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with the country’s anti-graft agencies to enforce compliance forthwith, starting this May.
Speaking when some members of the Energy Correspondent Association of Nigeria (ECAN) paid him a visit in his Abuja office, Executive Secretary, NEITI, Dr. Ogbonnaya Orji, stated that the agency would specifically sign agreements with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU).
Orji noted that compliance had been a challenge to the organisation’s work in the extractive industries, disclosing that the agencies over which NEITI has oversight are being encouraged to set up extractive industry desks to aid the work of the initiative.
“One of the challenges we have in implementing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is compliance and enforcement. You are aware that reports are published in Nigeria and it is usually a challenge to implement.
“This is because agencies just don’t think to do so. If there are no sanctions or incentives, sanctions for refusing to implement, incentives for doing well, everybody moves on and that is the bane of our society,” he said.
He noted that it was part of the reasons the organisation was aligning with those who have very “powerful machineries” to enforce sanctions, stressing that in the next couple of days the agreements will be completed.
He added: “The draft with the ICPC is being reviewed by the two organisations and the draft with the NFIU is also being reviewed. In the EFCC we have geologists, geoscientists and people who have worked in the oil and gas industry. If they don’t have, they will engage and when our reports are released we share with them.”
Orji stated that the reports would be analysed by officials of the anti-corruption agencies, maintaining that if any malfeasance and misconduct in terms of managing extractive industry revenues are discovered, the organisations will move against such individuals or government agencies.
According to him: “If it is outside the country, such as the stealing of our crude oil, the NFIU will trace it. The NFIU is an international agency.”
He noted that the end goal of the collaboration with the anti-corruption agencies was to ensure that oil revenues reflect in the lives of citizens of the country and make funds available to boost infrastructure, arguing that the current insecurity in the country could be traced to the impact of poverty.
Orji stated that the agency had commenced moves to partner the federal ministry of environment on how to draw up data on how activities in the extractive industries affect the environment, adding that NEITI would be linking its reports to physical impacts, going forward.
“We are equally trying to make sure that we are able to link our reports to impacts. When we publish reports, monies are recovered or we highlight monies that are missing.
“We want to follow-up and ensure that those monies are recovered into government coffers and we are committed to ensuring that the monies are well utilised,” he assured.
While calling for the support of energy correspondents, Orji stated journalists remain worthy allies in the fight against graft and waste of public funds in the country.
NEITI recently yesterday disclosed that it was forging closer ties with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to unravel the actual owners of oilfields and other assets in the country. It had disclosed that both organisations have resolved to establish a joint coordination committee to identify, document and disclose the owners under the country’s implementation of “Beneficial Ownership” policy of the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). A statement by the NEITI’s Head of Communications and Advocacy, Mrs. Obiageli Onuorah, had noted that the decisions were taken at a meeting between the management of the two agencies held in Abuja.
Orji had described the CAC as a dependable ally in Nigeria’s implementation of the global EITI’s beneficial ownership disclosure requirements.
The NEITI executive secretary explained that the documentation of the owners of the assets would help to check illicit financial flows, terrorism financing, tax evasion and diversion of government revenues
