The status of the payment of the N2.6 trillion owed the Federal Government by 77 oil and gas will be unveiled in March 2022.
The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Board-the National Stakeholders Working Group (NSWG) has approved the 2020 Oil and Gas audit report that will show how many firms have paid and how much they have remitted to the Federal Government coffers.
NEITI’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji made this known yesterday in a text message to The Nation .
His text message to an inquest from our Abuja correspondent reads: “Yes, Our 2020 Oil/gas report will be released next month-March, 2022. The report is ready, has just been approved by NEITI Board-the National Stakeholders Working Group (NSWG).”
The Nation had reported the postponement of the unveiling of the report to first quarter (Q1) of the year.
Our Abuja correspondent had reported that the watchdog organisation deferred the publication that it earlier scheduled to present last November.
Besides, on that, The Nation asked Orji whether NEITI would still unveil the audit report that month, he said the presentation had been postponed to last December.
Meanwhile, the NEITI boss said the organisation had to reschedule the presentation to capture issues emanating from the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
Orji said: “As a result of reviews in scope and content to enable NEITI respond adequately to unfolding EITI emerging issues, matters arising from the post petroleum industry act, the 2020 oil and gas report will be ready within the first quarter of next year.”
He also said the NEITI will also commence the 2021 Oil and Gas industry audit next year.
He added that next year, the organization will commence the Mining Industry audit.
His words: “The conduct of 2021 industry reports, oil/gas and mining will also commence next year.”
It would be recalled that Orji had September in the press conference in Abuja urged the Federal Government to prevail on the 77 firms to remit their outstanding dues of Value Added Tax, Withholding Income Tax, Education Tax and the others amounting to N2.6 trillion to the government.
He said: “Now, the 2020 audit report will validate if these payments have been made by the companies. Our audit reports are published annually. Plans are on to release the 2020 report by November this year.”
Last November 12, when Orji was asked reveal how much the 77 companies had paid, he said: “The ongoing NEITI 2020 oil/gas independent industry audit to be released early next month will confirm the current status. I am in no position to speculate at this moment.”
Some days after the press conference, where he announced the outstanding debts to journalists, President Muhammadu Buhari gave a coalition of anti-graft agencies, including the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), the Independence Corrupt Practices and Other Crimes Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) the approval to recover about N2.65 trillion unremitted funds from the 77 oil companies.
The NFIU Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Modibbo Tukur, who broke the news when he visited the NEITI secretariat to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two government organisations, said that it was unacceptable that government would be owed such huge funds at a time it was borrowing to fund major projects around the country.
He said the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, had been directed by the president to oversee the process, including the setting up of a panel of the anti-corruption agencies to recover the unremitted monies.
He said: “And that (NEITI’s hard work) has led to some kind of fruition because I briefed him (President Muhammadu Buhari) this morning and you may not be aware of it. This week, Mr President has approved officially all the recoveries to be done in this area. The minister of finance has been directed to set up a recovery panel with the EFCC, NEITI and NFIU in it and even NAPIMS and all the others.
“So, we are heading to maximum transparency. And there will be consolidation of data coming from NEITI, from NFIU and other agencies and there will be very clear reconciliation with the players and those regulating the sector. So, no more hiding of our national revenues. We all know what we are going through. Nobody wants to see the government borrow.”
He noted that although he had done some work in the past with the organisation, this time around, the new NEITI management was raising the standards in the execution of EITI principles, traversing the entire country and getting results.
“So we have the public accounts analysis and reporting. They analyse every government account from local government to federal in this country. So if the oil company has said that we are paying, we will be the one to tell them whether they have paid and that’s what we’re doing.
“And we have the oil, maritime and petroleum sector analysis we also have the natural environment analysis. So this is also a natural environment issue where people hide and they do illegal mining, they exploit, then they do certain things and they move it out of the country without even the ministry of mining knowing and sometimes they go as far as using this sector to finance terrorism.
“We ran into so many cases, in this particular area when we’re doing our analysis on terrorism. So, I think is the day to congratulate you because we are taking off and you will see the results because now we have all seen the zeal.
“Because you are talking about N2.6 trillion, then we reported over $5 billion, not paid in the area where the players are, which is the Niger Delta area. And then over N700 billion naira not paid, and in some cases companies receiving as agents and not even remitting. I think to achieve greater transparency in this area , it is good this time around to work with artificial intelligence, because if you are waiting for somebody to collect money and give you your own share, maybe it’s the day you are standing in front of God that he will pay you.
“Very soon both our teams will move to the ministry of finance, where we are going to sit down, call these companies and talk the real issues. We have walked the walk, so that the results will come in. And from that data you have and the one we have, the alert will start coming in very soon.
“The essence of this collaboration is to strengthen our partnership to be able to support each other, to ensure that resources available in our country are prudently managed in a manner that benefits all Nigerians.
“When I met you in February this year, I did say that an underlining importance of NFIU and NEITI collaboration in areas of managing information and data at our disposal in the oil, gas and mining sectors because of the strategic importance of the sector to our economy and the extensive work that I am aware the NFIU is doing in that sector.
“It’s been a long journey, but I am glad that the documents that are going to underpin our relationship is now ready for signing. This is a very fundamental aspect of our relationship with NFIU. We are very comfortable, very happy and appreciative of the job that agencies like yours are doing in that sector.
“We can’t all sit down and watch as a few people want to fritter the resources that are available. This country is in haste to develop and need resources to provide roads, water,electricity, build infrastructure for our people and our teeming youths and make life abundant and to reduce the exodus of our youths to other jurisdictions where they go and even things tougher.
“When we travel around the world and we meet Nigerians, I feel pained because some of them are the best talents and brains that can be more useful in our country.
The essence of this partnership is underpinned by the need for information sharing, joint preventive and remediation action in governance processes, especially in the extractive industry.
Also, regular capacity building and training, especially in the oil and gas and mining sector, joint stakeholder awareness creation, intelligence sharing, in the extractive industry and investigations. We need to also partner with technical committees that will execute, and provide content for actualisation of this MOU.
He said that the plan would be enhanced by regular meetings and more importantly supporting in investigating issues bordering on criminality arising from NEITI industry reports in oil, gas and mining sector.
Everyday we get reports of illegal mining, extortion and selling of our mineral in the international market without any consideration, especially in the area that these activities border on our national security and expressed joy that the president has responded to the plea of the organisation.
In the course of its engagements, Orji explained that NEITI had met with the EFCC, ICPC with the climax being NFIU, which will go beyond signing papers, but ensuring that there’s action in executing the mandate that they got from Buhari.