By Oscarline Onwuemenyi

The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, wants erring oil companies identified in the 2005 oil and gas industry audit report sanctioned by the appropriate government regulatory agencies.

Floating Mega Station located at Nembe serving the communities

The Chairman of NEITI, Prof. Assisi Asobie, who made the call at a workshop organised by the Coalition for Accountability and Transparency in Extractive Industries, Forestry and Fisheries in Nigeria, CATEIFFN, on NEITI’s Road to Validation: Key Issues and Challenges.

He said that Nigeria would attain the Extractive Industry Transparency initiative, EITI compliant status either by March 1 or latest by mid_April, adding that corruption in the oil and gas industry was fueled by lack of information sharing and cooperation among regulatory agencies in the country.

According to him, “In the heady days of reform after the second coming of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the newly created anti_corruption agencies, along with NEITI and the Department for Petroleum Resources, DPR, actively cooperated in the quest to create more transparency and reduce corruption in the oil and gas industry, and the results were immediately felt by all.

“But nowadays, for whatever reason that cooperation is no longer there and there is little or no information flow among the agencies, which has led to a decline in transparency in the industry.”

Asobie, therefore, called on the reconstituted Inter_Ministerial Task Team, IMTT, handling the implementation of the 2005 audit report to ensure that all remediation issues raised in the document, including sanctions against erring multinational oil companies are implemented.

He specifically charged the IMTT, which was set up by the Federal Government to recommend steps to implement the remediation issues including sanctions for erring covered entities, adding that the IMTT is to advise NEITI on all remediation issues arising from the Audit report.

“The remediation issues identified by the report include revenue flows interface, improving Nigeria’s oil and gas metering infrastructure, cost determination, human capacity development and general improvement of extractive sector governance,” he noted.

Asobie regretted that since the IMTT was set up in 2006, it has achieved very little in these areas. According to the Chairman, “the advice to be provided by IMTT has to be clear, specific, professional, practical and practicable.” He explained that the need to reconstitute the Committee was part of on_going renewal efforts in NEITI.

On her part, the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, stressed that NEITI Audit Reports can only achieve the desired goals if their recommendations are implemented by the affected agencies represented in the IMTT. She pledged the support of the NEITI Secretariat to the Task Team on its mandate.

The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Mr. Austin Oniwon, was among top executives present at the meeting, where all agencies on the IMTT promised to make reasonable impact on the issues before the next meeting of the Task Team scheduled for February, 2011.