FG recovers N1.5trn taxes, fees from oil companies – NEITI

Oil and gas companies have paid over N1.5 trillion in taxes and fees to the Federal Government of Nigeria as the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) published a N2.6trn debt report for 2019 on the companies.

Speaking during an interview on Friday, the executive secretary of the NEITI, Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, said the organisation worked with the National Assembly Review Committee on NEITI’s report to push for recovery of the outstanding 2019 debt from extractive companies.

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Before the NEITI pronouncement on the N2.6trn debt, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) recovered $810million while the NURPC got $1.416billion, amounting to $2.226bn or N900bn. Between 2021, and so far in 2022, the NEITI head said the agency worked with the National Assembly review committee and pushed the debtors to pay more. 

From this, the FIRS got $662.9m while the NUPRC got $913.5m, reaching $1.576bn or N600bn.

The agency said the outstanding taxes and fees from the oil companies were about $2.674bn with $18.98m for the FIRS and $2.655bn for NUPRC, which is an expected N1.07trn for Nigeria and would be updated in the 2021 report planned for release this year.

The NEITI is enabled by the EITI Standard across over 20 countries and the NEITI Act 2007. It conducts a financial, physical and process audit yearly to probe cash flows in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.

The 2019 NEITI report stated that 77 oil and gas companies owed the federal government over N2.6trn in Petroleum Profit Tax, Company Income Tax, Education Tax, Value Added Tax, Withholding Tax, Royalties, Penalties and Concession on rentals.

Mr Orji also said the NEITI was working to release the 2021 report before the year ends, just as he said the agency is preparing for the EITI revalidation process coming up in January 2023 to determine Nigeria’s improvement in transparency in the oil and gas industry.

The NEITI, Orji noted, was instrumental to the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, the new petroleum industry regulators and the ongoing reforms at NNPC Ltd.