Recovering money – Transparency Initiative

The President disclosed this while inaugurating NEITI National Stakeholders‘ Working Group in Abuja. The NEITI NSWG ensures due process and transparency in all payments and receipts made between the Federal Government and operators in the extractive industry. Yar‘Adua noted that the government had benefited from its decision to check corruption in the extractive industry by signing on to the Transparency Initiative four years ago.

He said, ”We signed on to the EITI four years ago with a view to boosting our fight against corruption in all its ramifications. ”I am glad to state that NEITI has recorded major achievements in its four years of operations. “Among other accomplishments, it commissioned and popularised the first comprehensive audit of the petroleum sector from 1999 to 2004; conducted studies that swelled government‘s coffers by over $1bn; and catapulted our country into a leading position among countries implementing the EITI.”

The President tasked the new NEITI working group to live up to the standards of its predecessors under the leadership of the World Bank Vice-President for Africa, Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili, and Dr. Silyan Malomo.
The President also stressed the importance of NEITI to the realisation of his administration‘s plans for the country. He said, ”Given its specific mandate which is the promotion of transparency and accountability in the management of revenues from the oil and gas, as well as the mining sectors of the economy, NEITI is critical to the realisation of our developmental and national restoration objectives.

”Today, the extractive sector approximates the soul of our economy, with the petroleum sub-sector alone accounting for more than 40 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product and over 80 per cent of our foreign earnings. “The obvious centrality of the sector to our national economy makes the transparent, efficient and prudent management of revenues from our extractive industries imperative.” He pledged his administration‘s readiness to partner with NEITI in the discharge of its mandate.

The President added that his administration‘s resolve to fight corruption and follow the rule of law was not mere propaganda. ”Fighting corruption is, for us, not just a rating-boosting or public relations gambit. Rather, it is a manifestation of our unequivocal commitment to delivering on our social contract with the people of Nigeria as encapsulated in our seven-point agenda,” Yar’Adua said. The Head of the NEITI, Prof. Asisi Asobie, in his response said, ”We cannot perform these tasks effectively if we are corrupt.”

He promised that the new working group would go a step further than its predecessors by making timely public disclosures of payments, receipts and application of revenue from the extractive industries.
Asobie said, ”We are determined too to ensure that NEITI transcends periodic auditing and makes public disclosures of payments, receipts, and application of revenue from natural resources a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly regular and timely routine for extractive industries, companies and Nigerian governments alike.

”We are also determined to ensure that the revenues accruing to the nation from extractive industries are maximised, while the costs borne by the nation in terms of expenditure on the sector, environmental damage and associated health hazards are minimised.” The former president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities added that NSWG would look at outstanding issues in the industry.

He said, ”We shall implement the NEITI Act faithfully. We shall have a work plan, an action plan, which is embedded in a strategic plan. “We will not however neglect outstanding issues, such as the remediation of deficiencies and incapacities of certain public agencies charged with regulating the oil and gas industry, as identified by the NEITI auditors in their reports which cover the years 1999-2005.”

 

Published by API africanpress@getmail.no source.ThePunch.Nigeria