By Emmanuel Acha

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is a global effort aimed at improving the management of oil, gas and mining revenues in resource-rich countries. The initiative effectively took off in 2002 during the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which held in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Its basic thrust is to ensure that huge revenues, derived from extractive industries and paid to governments are managed judiciously and transparently, to engender development and reduce poverty among the people.

Because of its relevance to the nation’s circumstances and particularly, the disposition of the present administration to transparency, the Federal Government was quick to domesticate the initiative through the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in 2003.

Prof. Assisi Asobie, Chairman, NEITI National Stakeholders Working Group, explained that the Federal government signed up to the EITI Initiative due to the need to boost information, transparency and accountability regarding the nation’s oil revenue.

Some economists are quick to point out that NEIT’s thrust is salutary against the backdrop that many resource-rich nations usually mismanaged their resources on vain projects at the expense of the welfare of their peoples.

Their expectation is that, nations which subscribed to NETI’s protocols will promote accountability and good governance, while reducing social conflicts and suspicions through openness on revenue payments and receipts. For Nigeria in particular, NEITI’s goals, no doubt, accord perfectly with the key components of the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategies (NEEDS) formulated by the Federal Government.

Officials say that NEITI attained EITI’s Complaint Status in March, on the occasion of the 2011 Global Conference, which held in Paris, France.

The “Complaint Status” thus rates Nigeria as one of the “top eleven” nations out of 35, which have fully committed themselves to the enthronement of openness, transparency, accountability and good governance, with regards to revenues derived from natural resources. By its terms of operation, NEITI is required to conduct annual audits to verify and reconcile revenues paid to government, to make the latter publicly accountable.

Diezani Alison-Madueke

Recently, NEITI organized an empowerment workshop for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) from the South-East geopolitical zone in Umuahia, as part of measures to create increased public awareness on the goals and objectives of the initiative. Asobie said at the workshop that Nigeria was on record to be one of the first countries of the world to take concrete and practical steps to implement the EITI.

“Nigeria is a quintessential resource-rich country with a large population of very poor people. Studies have shown that the root cause of her underdevelopment is the lack of transparency and accountability in the management of the revenues derived from natural resources.”

Analyst express the viewpoint that much of the operations in the nation’s oil sector had been shrouded in secrecy somehow, which perhaps prompted a Senate Committee to recently initiate a probe into the operations of the oil sector of the economy. Particularly disturbing are claims by critics that after about 58 years of oil production, Nigeria is yet to determine the exact quantum of crude oil lifted by oil companies out of the country.

Bemoaned Asobie: “It is regrettable that government has not been able to get oil companies to tell Nigerians exactly what quantity they produced and how much they spent to produce a barrel of oil”. For this reason, Asobie said that the CSOs had a prime duty to take the relevant authorities to task over the management of the nation’s nature-endowed resources. He assured CSOs that NEITI would not spare efforts to train and equip them with the necessary tools, to be able to hold accountable, people entrusted with the nation’s wealth.

”The CSOs need to monitor government’s performances. We need to train them for maximum output and also remove all obstacles for their participation in governance,” he said Abia’s Governor, Chief Theodore Orji, described establishment of NEITI as salutary and expressed the hope that through it governments at all levels would be more purposeful in developmental issues.

He said that the benefit of oil and gas to the country’s economy had been enormous but lamented that they had inadvertently engendered complacency on the part of the people and seemingly discouraged government’s diversification of the nation’s economy.

He canvassed for equitable distribution of the revenues from the nation’s natural resources in line with the contributions of the federating states, noting that those who canvassed for the Sovereign Wealth Fund did not mean well for the ordinary citizens. “People are dying yet there is wealth in the country. We are dying and they are talking of Sovereign Wealth Fund. Give us the money today and tomorrow will take care of itself,” Orji said.

The challenges before NEITI, no doubt include creation of increased awareness of its mandate through public enlightenment and education as well as the building of partnerships with critical stakeholders, especially the CSOs. Mrs Zainab Ahmed, Executive Secretary of NEITI said that the civil society is central to the implementation of the NEITI Act. “There are very clear areas where NEITI needs the support and partnership of the civil society.

”These include public education and advocacy, agenda setting, monitoring and over sight functions, methods of seeking redress, petitions and recourse mechanisms. “Others are remediation, dissemination and use of information and data in the audit report to hold government and companies accountable. Ahmed said that civil society groups, which included NGOs, trade unions, community and town unions, professional associations, religious bodies and others, represented the conscience of the society and must ensure the success of NEITI.

Chief Sam Ohuabunwa, the South-East representative in NEITI, said that the body would continue to empower the CSOs to hold elected chief executives accountable in their respective states.

“If we do this in the South-East, our conditions will improve. We have the worst infrastructure in the country. If the governors complain that they are not getting enough from the Federal Account, how do they utilize the little they receive,” Ohuabunwa asked rhetorically. While the relevance of CSOs to the mandate of NEITI is not in doubt, some analysts are, however, skeptical about the capacity of the CSOs to carry out their monitoring functions without undue influence from government.

Mr Nnanna Nwafor, a participant at the workshop, said that such fears were not misplaced but insisted that it would be difficult to expect untainted and accurate results from the CSOs, especially those which regularly enjoyed government patronage.

Observers insist that Nigeria, being an EITI-complaint nation, should use the NEITI platform to ensure that revenues from oil, gas and other solid minerals are utilized judiciously to better the lives of the citizens. They also say that the CSOs should operate truly independent of government, while they must enhance their capacity to make governments accountable to reduce the level of poverty in the country. (NANFeatures)