The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has said that the Federal Government recovered a total of N1.5 trillion from oil firms in the country.
According to the NEITI report, while the total recovery pre-2021 and before the pronouncement of NEITI was N900 billion, the additional amount recovered after NEITI’s pronouncement/National Assembly review was N600 billion. The N600 billion was from oil and gas companies operating in Nigeria.
According to a NEITI audit report, the N600 billion recoveries comprised formerly unpaid taxes, royalties, penalties and commissions on rentals. The report stated that the total debt of the 77 oil firms was N2.6 trillion as at 2019.
The oil firms started remitting the funds following an invitation by the House of Representatives. NEITI had told the House during one of its plenary sessions that 77 oil firms which were operating in Nigeria owed the government N2.6 trillion.
According to the House, the debt emanated as a result of the failure of the oil firms to remit to the federal government, Petroleum Profit Tax, Company Income Tax, Education Tax, Value Added Tax, Withholding Tax, Royalties, penalties and concession on rentals.
The Executive Secretary, NEITI, Orji Ogbonnaya-Orji, told journalists in Abuja that the 2021 oil industry audit report will be published before the end of 2022. He said that it was NEITI’s responsibility to furnish government with Nigeria’s extractive industry data.
According to him, the report will reveal the number of oil firms that have paid to the Federal Government how much was paid and how much government received.
Orji said: “The 2021 (oil and gas sector) report will be concluded and published before the end of the year. The scope of the report is to establish what companies paid to the government within the given year of 2021 and how much of that money did government receive.
“We equally want to establish if those companies paid what they should pay and if the government actually received what it should receive, as well as the variances if any. “We want to establish the quantity of crude that is produced, how much of that can be accounted for, and how much was stolen.
We should establish the amount that was exported, reserved for local consumption and how this reserve was managed.”