The Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) audit report has culminated in the recovery of N1.5 trillion outstanding debts from taxes and fees from oil companies.
The watchdog organization’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji stated this in an interview with a select reporters in Abuja on Friday.
There is yet an outstanding N900 billion that the NEITI may activate its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) to recover for the Federal Government.
He recalled that the 2019 NEITI oil and gas audit report had revealed that 77 companies were oil Value Added Tax (VAT), Withholding Tax , Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) etc totally N2.6 trillion.
According to him, prior to the NEITI pronouncement on the N2.6trn debt, FIRS recovered $810m while NURPC got $1.416bn amounting to $2.226bn or N900bn.
Between 2021 and so far in 2022, the NEITI head said the agency worked with the National Assembly review committee and pushed the debtors to pay more. From this, FIRS got $662.9m while NUPRC got $913.5m, reaching $1.576bn or N600bn.
The agency said the outstanding taxes and fees from the oil companies is about $2.674bn with $18.98m for FIRS and $2.655bn for NUPRC which is an expected N1.07trn for Nigeria, and would be updated in the 2021 report planned for release this year.
NEITI is enabled by the EITI Standard across over 20 countries, and the NEITI Act 2007. It conducts a Financial, Physical and Process Audit yearly to probe cash flows in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.
In the 2019 NEITI report, it stated that 77 oil and gas companies owe the federal government over N2.6tr in Petroleum Profit Tax, Company Income Tax, Education Tax, Value Added Tax, Withholding Tax, Royalties, Penalties and Concession on rentals.
Orji also said NEITI was working to release the 2021 report before the year ends just as he said the agency is preparing for the EITI revalidation process coming up in January 2023 to determine Nigeria’s improvement in transparency in the oil and gas industry.
NEITI, Orji noted, was instrumental to the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, the new petroleum industry regulators and the ongoing reforms at NNPC Ltd.