By Oscarline Onwuemenyi
ABUJA — The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, has disclosed that it has begun the recovery of more than $2.3 billion in crude sales, royalties, taxes and other payments, which were not remitted to the Federation Account by operators in the nation’s oil and gas industry.

The Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, who made the disclosure at a meeting with officials of the World Bank, in Abuja, also said the Secretariat had written to all the affected companies for the payment of the outstanding sum. “So far, Pan Ocean Corporation has settled up to $3.8 million of its underpayments,” she said.

Zainab also announced that the organisation in collaboration with relevant government agencies and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, have begun the deployment of high-end technology to capture data in the upstream sector of the oil gas industry.

According to her, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has deployed new IT applications to enhance operational efficiency, while the NNPC now provides advance information on financial flows to all affected agencies prior to the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC meetings.

She added, “Also, the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation receives from the CBN credit advices in respect of all the oil revenue receipts from crude sales, PPT, royalty, gas flaring penalties and others. To ensure checks and balances, all oil companies collect official receipts for all payments made to CBN.

“Furthermore, the NNPC is now conducting monthly and quarterly reconciliation of payments with operating companies and other stakeholders such as the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR; Federal Inland Revenue Services, FIRS; CBN and FAAC.”

Zainab further disclosed that the Federal Government has approved NEITI’s request to be admitted as an observer into the FAAC, to enhance its ability to better monitor the monthly disbursement of funds to the three tiers of government.

She added that, “NEITI has commissioned a study on the Metering Infrastructure. A report on the metering study has been received from the consultants and has been reviewed. The recommendations are to be forwarded to the Inter-Ministerial Task Team, for further review.

“It is also important to note that the FIRS has designed a template for Petroleum Profit Tax returns and estimates, which have been reviewed by the Oil Producers Trade Section, OPTS, and agreed for implementation.”

With regards to revamping infrastructure and human capacity development in the sector to boost transparency, the NEITI scribe noted that the NNPC has embarked on intervention work to replace obsolete and vandalised pipelines, while identified capacity gaps are being addressed by all regulatory agencies.

She said, “For instance, the National Production Monitoring System, NPMS, installed by DPR is meant to enable it ultimately track hydrocarbon flows from well heads to the export vessels. The NPMS has capabilities for production surveillance, analysis and forecasting.”

She argued that NEITI was set to live up to its responsibilities in line with the Act of 2007, and had put in place action plans on technical, communications, legislative and management strategies to enhance its visibility in the industry.