NEITI wants Buhari to recover N3.8trn revenue from oil firms

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative on Tuesday urged President Muhammadu Buhari to prioritise the recovery of $19.1bn (about N3.8 trn.) from oil and gas companies operating in the country to provide the required funding for his administration’s economic agenda.

Details of the revenue consists of over $7.5bn from established cases of underpayments, under-assessments of taxes, royalties, rents, etc. revealed by several of NEITI’s independent audit reports since 1999.

The amount also include about $11.6bn, being total outstanding dividends from loans and interest repayments from Federal Government’s investment in the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas that was not remitted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to the government.

The NEITI executive secretary, Zainab Ahmed, was speaking in Abuja at an oil and gas conference convened for experts in the oil and gas industry to articulate an advisory agenda for the new administration’s plan to reform the industry.

Mrs. Ahmed said the vigorous pursuit of the agenda to recover the revenue with all political will and seriousness it deserved would bring enormous benefits to the country, particularly at this time the new administration was in dire need of huge funding to tackle complex problems facing the country.

Criticizing the transfer of eight oil wells sold in 2010 and 2011 by the NNPC to its upstream subsidiary, the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company, the Executive Secretary called for a full investigation, as the whole transaction was not transparent.