Nigeria: NEITI moves operations to commodity trading

Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has disclosed that it will expand its operations in the oil and gas industry to cover Commodity Trading. NEITI’s Executive Secretary, Waziri Adio made the disclosure at a workshop for relevant government agencies and oil trading companies in Abuja recently. The Executive Secretary represented by the Director, Communications and Advocacy, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji explained that the decision to move into commodity trading is in line with the NEITI mandate and in compliance with EITI 2016 global standards. Dr. Orji, explained that “the overall objective of NEITI’s interest in commodity trading is to improve transparency in the sale of the state share of production by government and state owned enterprises among others”. Dr. Orji called on the companies and government agencies involved in commodity trading to carefully study the developed templates by NEITI with a view to internalizing these new reporting requirements as part of their respective overall business model. Responding, the representatives of government agencies, oil and gas companies viewed NEITI’s decision to expand its operations to commodity trading as a most welcome development. They said the development would further promote transparency, fair competition and good business ethics in the sector.