The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) on Monday disclosed it is working with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to recover about $6 billion and another N66 billion owed by some stakeholders in the oil sector.
NEITI’s Executive Secretary, Orji Ogbonnaya Orji disclosed this while defending the 2025 budget before the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream).
Orji noted that every detail of the agency’s report has been forwarded to the committee. While on the budget, he disclosed that NEITI was handed an envelope of N6.5 billion for the 2025 financial year.
“This is made up of N2.220 billion for personnel, N1.722 billion for overhead and N2.575 billion for capital projects”.
He said some of the critical activities of the agency in the year 2025 will include conducting an industry report of the oil gas and mining sector, as well as fiscal allocation and statutory disbursement audit, research studies on the actual volume of PMS consumed in Nigeria, the economic impact of energy transition in Nigeria and a national perception survey EITI implementation in Nigeria.
He said from its 2020 and 2021 reports alone, over 3.7 billion dollars were recovered into government coffers as outstanding liabilities from companies operating in the oil and gas sector in the country.
Responding, the Chairman of the Committee, Alhassan Ado Doguwa faulted the inclusion of the National Assembly as those benefiting from NEITI’s welfare package.
Doguwa said since the committee was constituted, it has not visited the agency on oversight, wondering why they will be included in such a welfare package, adding that the only welfare the House expected from them was the welfare of the Nigerian people.
He said “While I agree that the budget stops at our desk and you are just presenting a proposal, I would like to say that the economy is actually bad, the population of people for whom we are actually here are crying out. Agencies of government must be mindful of what they spend out of public resources.
“All these proposals are going to be spent at the expense of the Nigerian people. Sometimes, we come to make presentations here that sound funny and very insultive in the eyes of the people.
*When you say in your projection things like welfare package informs of ex-gracia, health insurance, welfare packages to staff and some critical stakeholders during welfare packages”.
He however assured that the committee was ready to support the agency in actualising its mandate, saying your agency is a critical one and the legislatureis unappreciative of the work that you are doing.
“We will definitely try as much as possible to support you as long as you can justify the reasons for one expenditure or the other. Then the legislature will have no option than to support you and provide you with the enabling financial environment for you to discharge your duties and mandate.”
