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FG recovers $3bn through NEITI reports - DAILY TRUST
By Faruk Shuaibu
The former Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, has stated the federal government was able to recover $3bn and more than $6bn in outstanding revenues and liabilities was identified through evidence-based reporting.
Speaking during a send-off ceremony after the completion of his five-year tenure yesterday in Abuja, Orji said these achievements strengthened domestic resource mobilisation and fiscal transparency in the extractive sector.
“When I assumed office on 19 February 2021, NEITI faced a convergence of operational, governance, and institutional challenges—threatened eviction from rented offices, a vacant NSWG, strained stakeholder relations, inadequate tools and infrastructure, low staff morale, and a rapidly evolving extractive governance landscape demanding climate reporting, systematic disclosure, beneficial ownership transparency, and data-driven accountability.”
He stated that the institution was able to rebuild trust across government agencies, extractive companies, civil society, and the media and was able to maintain full global compliance with the consistent publication of Oil & Gas, Solid Minerals, and FASD Reports, advancing key reforms including PIA implementation, beneficial ownership transparency, contract disclosure, licensing accountability, environmental reporting, and subnational governance.
“Despite the complexities surrounding the 2023 Validation cycle, Nigeria achieved 92/100 in Outcomes and Impact and 90/100 in Transparency, reaffirming NEITI’s standing as a leading global reform institution,” he said.
On his part, the newly appointed Executive Secretary of NEITI, Musa Sarkin-Adar, stressed the need to review the 2007 NEITI Act to strengthen transparency in the extractive sector.
Adar said the inability of NEITI to get powers to effectively police and monitor the oil, gas and mining industry is hindering the transparency needed in the sector.
“There is so much lacuna in the Act that established this institution and it needs to be strengthened by an Act of the Parliament and that is going to be one of the major tasks. I wonder how an institution like this, which is going to oversee a very powerful mafia, doesn’t have any teeth to bite. Lack of those teeth to bite is hindering our performance, on the earlier performance.”
He commended Orji for the stride the institution made during his stewardship.
