… Plans Amendments To NEITI Act, Establishment Of Data Center
By Chidiebere Ugwu
The Executive Secretary of Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) on Wednesday said President Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s timely reconstitution of the NEITI National Stakeholders Working Group (NSWG) has lifted the country in the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative EITI.
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Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, who stated this at a press briefing Wednesday in Abuja, said the singular intervention by the President has rescued NEITI and indeed the country from its international partners, expressing gratitude to the President, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) the civil society and others stakeholders whose efforts contributed in realizing the putting in place of a Board in a timely manner.
“Let use this opportunity to thank the President of Nigeria for rescuing us from our International partners by timely inaugurating the NEITI Board. It is a huge that President Bola Tinubu has lifted NEITI and the country from by that timely intervention. We are grateful to to the President, and the SGF for all the support given to NEITI to put the Board in place” he said.
He said the NEITI management would dissolve into retreat with a view to looking for ways to improve the organization’s operations and make NEITI an island of excellence.
According to him, the retreat would enable NEITI management to look at its internal governance structure and systems, in order to make them much better.
Orji said plans are underway to conduct a study on what would be the impact of Nigerian economy and people’s living standards if energy transition is implemented between now and the year 2050.
He further disclosed that as the highest investment in the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry in the country, NEITI has initiated talks with the Dangote refinery with a view to getting the company see reasons why they must work with NEITI.
Orji also reiterated commitment to the readiness of 2022-2023 Industry Reports by September 2024, adding that plans are underway to amend the NEITI Act.
“We have a plan to draft amendments to NEITI Act, we have gotten support from the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), we also got support from the office of the Attorney General of the Federation, but we want our Board to look at those areas we feel that things should change. Once our Board are okay we should land at National Assembly” he said.
Continuing the Executive Secretary said: “Already our strategy on improving stakeholders’ engagement has yielded very positive results. We now have the NSWG in place with the SGF chairing the NEITI Board, NEITI – Companies Forum now has a Deputy Chair and both the chair and his deputy have stepped up their engagements and support to the EITI process.
“I want to reassure our stakeholders, international partners and the global EITI that no stone is being left unturned in ensuring that at the next validation, Nigeria scores the maximum points of 100 in its assessment.
“On the Industry Reports, NEITI has commenced and made very good progress with the conduct of the 2022-2023 industry reports of the oil, gas and mining sectors.
“Two indigenous independent Administrators are conducting the exercise. They are Haruna Yahaya for the Solid Minerals report and Adeshile Adedeji & Co for the conduct of the oil and gas report. We have also set September, 2024 as the date for the completion of the reports. We have deployed our automated information-gathering infrastructure-NAMS for the conduct of the exercise.
“The theme of the Oil & Gas report is “Impact of the PIA on domestic resource mobilization,” while the theme of the Solid Minerals report is “Unleashing the potential of the solid mineral sector. assessing the Nigeria mining roadmap.” The Terms of Reference for these reports have been reviewed and agreed upon by the stakeholders in the absence of the National Stakeholders Working Group (NSWG)”
