NEITI To Unveil 77 Oil Firms Status In 2.6tr Tax Arrears

Seventy-seven firms are to know their stand in the 2020 oil and gas audit report of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), billed for publication early next month.

The report, which the extractive industry watchdog had fixed November for launch, will reveal the status of remittance of the outstanding N2.6 trillion from the 77 companies.

NEITI’s Executive Secretary Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, told The Nation via a text message that he would not speculate on whether any of the 77 firms had made any remittance.

Saying that the 2020 report, when made public, would confirm the status of the payment, he said: “The ongoing NEITI 2020 oil/gas independent industry audit to be released early next month will confirm the current status. I am in no position to speculate at this moment.”

In September, Orji told reporters in Abuja that “the 2020 audit report will validate if these payments have been made by the companies. Our audit reports are published annually. Plans are on to release the 2020 report by November this year.”

It was at a news conference that he urged the Federal Government to prevail on the 77 firms to remit their outstanding dues of Value Added Tax, Withholding Income Tax, Education Tax and the others to the government, stating that the money was enough to cover for debt service in the 2021 budget.

Days after the conference, President Muhammadu Buhari gave a coalition of anti-graft agencies, including the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), the Independence Corrupt Practices and Other Crimes Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the approval to recover about N2.65 trillion unremitted funds from the 77 oil companies.

NFIU Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Modibbo Tukur, who broke the news when he visited the NEITI secretariat to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), said t was unacceptable that government would be owed such huge funds at a time it was borrowing to fund major projects around the country.

According to Tukur, Finance and National Minister Minister Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, has been directed by the President to oversee the process, including the setting up of a panel of the anti-corruption agencies to recover the unremitted monies.

He said: “NEITI’s hard work has led to some kind of fruition because I briefed him (President Muhammadu Buhari) this morning and you may not be aware of it. This week, Mr. President has approved officially all the recoveries to be done in this area. The Minister of Finance has been directed to set up a recovery panel with the EFCC, NEITI and NFIU and even NAPIMS and all the others.

“So, we are heading to maximum transparency. And there will be consolidation of data coming from NEITI, from NFIU and other agencies and there will be very clear reconciliation with the players and those regulating the sector. So, no more hiding of our national revenue. We all know what we are going through. Nobody wants to see the government borrow.”

Modibbo noted that although he had done some work in the past with the organisation, this time around, the new NEITI management was raising the standards in the execution of EITI principles, traversing the entire country and getting results.

“So, we have the public accounts analysis and reporting. They analyse every single government account from local government to federal in this country. So, if the oil companies that they are paying, we will be the one to tell them whether they have paid and that’s what we’re doing.

“And we have the oil, maritime and petroleum sector analysis, we also have the natural environment analysis. So, this is also a natural environment issue where people hide and they do illegal mining, they exploit, then they do certain things and they move it out of the country without even the ministry of mining knowing, and sometimes they go as far as using this sector to finance terrorism.

We ran into so many cases, in this particular area when we’re were doing our analysis on terrorism.

“So, I think today is the day to congratulate you, Modibbo said, because we are taking off and you will see the results. Now we have all seen the zeal.

“Because you are talking about N2.6 trillion, then we reported over $5 billion, not paid in the area where the players are, which is the Niger Delta area. And then, over N700 billion naira was not paid, and in some cases, companies receiving as agents and not even remitting.

“I think to achieve greater transparency in this area , it is good this time around to work with artificial intelligence, because if you are waiting for somebody to collect money and give you your own share, maybe it’s the day you are standing in front of God that he will pay you”.

Modibbo said both teams will soon approach the Finance Ministry “where we are going to sit down, call these companies and talk the real issues, so that the results will come in. And from that data you have and the one we have, the alert will start coming in very soon.

Pointing out that the collaboration was to strengthen partnership and to ensure prudent application of that available resources for the benefits of all, Midibbo said: “When I met you in February this year, I did stress the underlining importance of NFIU and NEITI collaboration in areas of managing information and data at our disposal in the oil, gas and mining sectors because of the strategic importance of the sector to our economy and the extensive work that I am aware the NFIU is doing in that sector.

”It’s been a long journey; but I am glad that the documents that will underpin our relationship are now ready for signing. This is a very fundamental aspect of our relationship with NFIU. We are very comfortable, very happy and appreciative of the job that agencies like yours are doing in that sector.

“We can’t all sit down and watch as a few people want to fritter the resources that are available. This country is in haste to develop and need resources to provide roads, water, electricity, build infrastructure for our people and our teeming youths and make life abundant and reduce the exodus of our youths to other jurisdictions where things are even tougher.”