By Patrick Andrew
Abuja
The board of Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) wants Nigeria to widen opportunities and strengthen the monitoring, oversight and implementation of the corrective actions identified through recent validation of its extractive industries.
Also, the board was optimistic that implementation of the value chain initiative recommended during the validation exercise would help Nigeria continue to demonstrate regional leadership and make a full transition to the EITI Standard.
This was contained in a congratulatory letter signed by the Chair of the global EITI and former Prime Minister of Sweden, Mr. Fredrik Reinfeldt, following the EITI Validation report on Nigeria.
Reinfeldt said the decision on Nigeria was based on “The efforts of the National Stakeholders’ Working Group (NSWG) to go beyond the requirements of the EITI Standard on a number of areas, including disclosures of the sales of the state’s in-kind revenues and the EITI’s contribution to an informed public debate”.
He said: “Nigeria has repeatedly demonstrated how the EITI process can be used to achieve important, tangible results for its citizens,” the statement said stressing that Nigeria has made meaningful progress in using the EITI Standard to improve the governance of its oil, gas and mining sectors.
“Nigeria is the first country in Africa to implement the EITI, helped shape the EITI Standard, developed one of the most extensive EITI reporting processes globally. Nigeria’s EITI (NEITI) has gone well beyond the initial requirements of the EITI by including assessments of physical and process flows alongside the reconciliation of financial payments.
“Nigeria was also the first country to enact a legislation institutionalising the EITI in the country and Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has been repeatedly recognised for its efforts at putting into effect recommendations from EITI reports leading to the recovery of more than $2.4billion for the Federal Government of Nigeria. NEITI has also increased multi-stakeholder collaboration and improved governance in the extractives sector.”
EITI said the decision on Nigeria was based on “The efforts of the NSWG to go beyond the requirements of the EITI Standard on a number of areas, including disclosures of the sales of the state’s in-kind revenues and the EITI’s contribution to an informed public debate”.
Reacting to the report, Chairman of the NEITI’s NSWG, and Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, welcomed the verdict and assured that Nigeria would address all the corrective actions before the next validation exercise.
A statement by NEITI’s Director, Communications, Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, said Nigeria was first adjudged a compliant country in 2011 in Paris – France when 15 out of the 51-member countries of the EITI went through the first phase of validation.
The next validation exercise is scheduled to hold on July 11, 2018.
