By Michael Eboh

ABUJA — The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, has accused international oil companies, IOCs, of capitalising on the lack of adequate metering facilities at the production and export terminals to defraud Nigeria of billions of dollars.

Speaking during a visit of officials of International Monetary Fund, IMF, to its headquarters, Acting Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mr. Ogbonnaya Orji, lamented that presently royalties are being paid by the IOCs based on computations using lifting volumes instead of production volumes.

Orji noted that efforts to entrench transparency in the metering process had been met with resistance from the IOCs, hence the decision to collaborate with the Nigerian Academy of Science to fashion out a means to stop the IOCs from shortchanging the country.

He said: “NEITI is working to ensure that the correct estimates of Nigeria’s crude oil lifted are gotten and we will not depend on estimates given by the IOCs.”

He further said the funding of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC’s Joint Venture, JV cash call was fraught with a lot of irregularities, adding that due to the delay in the payment, the country is forced to pay higher than usual.

Orji disclosed that NEITI is working with NNPC on the unbundling of the Corporation, saying specifically that issues around the unbundling process would be discussed at a meeting between officials of NEITI and the NNPC scheduled during the week.

He explained that Nigerians have come to the realisation that prudent management of the country’s resources is key, especially with the huge resources lost to mismanagement over the years.

He added that the country is faced with the reality of diversifying the economy while the government is much more concerned with blocking leakages, which are expected to bring about a lot of policy shifts.

He further said that Nigeria had been given until the end of February; to submit the completed NEITI 2013 audit report, while it had applied for a six-month grace to enable the Board to be reconstituted, trained and educated on NEITI’s operations.

Furthermore, Orji revealed that NEITI is considering expanding its focus to agriculture, forestry and fishing, and also hoped to increase its scope of engagement with the media and civil societies.

He said the proposed review and expansion of its scope was hinged on the fact that NEITI’s four-year strategic plan will end this year, adding that the review of its strategic plans is expected to commence before the end of the first quarter of 2016.

On the issue of Nigeria’s validation by the international Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, EITI, Orji said: “The EITI is currently reviewing the validation process and modalities following divergent views by multi stakeholders involved in the process.

This includes the civil societies, implementing countries and the investors.

“The civil society, investors and supporting countries equally have their separate views on how the validation process should be conducted in order to achieve the desired impact. In view of this, the EITI has put in place a Committee that is examining these views and interests with a view to harmonising them.