FG set to launch portal to track asset owners in extractive industries

This was disclosed by Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, the Executive Secretary of NEITI in a statement recently where he revealed that the aim of establishing the portal was one of the requirements of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global body of which Nigeria is a member, to ensure real owners of oil assets are made public.

This activity has been going on since 2019 during the tenure of the former head of NEITI, Waziri Adio.

The Roundtable on Beneficial Ownership Register in Nigeria was then hosted by the Media Initiative on Transparency in Extractive Industries (MITEI) to sensitize Nigerians on the benefits and significance of the register to the Nigerian economy.

The body had then sought to establish the register in a bid to help check tax evasion, money laundering, drug financing, and illicit financial flows by owners of these assets. 

The Extractive Industries account for more than 80 percent of government revenue, and a recent data quoted by a member of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Economic Advisory Council and Chief Executive Officer of Financial Derivatives Company Limited (FDC), Mr Bismarck Rewane, revealed that the country loses about 400,000 barrels of oil per day, which translates to about $1.2 billion, a figure which is equivalent to the 2021 budget of three Nigerian states of Osun, Ekiti and Kwara.

The current NEITI boss further added that with the portal, the body is required to identify the real owners of companies, and the people that benefit directly from companies.

Orji said: “This validation will take place in January 2023 but a team will be here in November as part of the process. It consists of compliance with the EITI requirements in the reforms going on in the oil and gas sector such as legal, human capital utilization and financial management.”

The process for the full EITI validation for Nigeria has commenced with NEITI’s launch of the BO portal and this certification will be carried out every three years with an inspection team from EITI headquarters in Oslo visiting Nigeria to evaluate the activities of the last three years.