The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) have agreed to work together to deepen Nigeria’s implementation of Contract Transparency and Beneficial ownership disclosures.
The commitments will enable Nigeria to meet the compliance standards required in the implementation of beneficial ownership disclosure, contract transparency, environmental reporting, gender, mainstreaming and the implementation of recommendations in the NEITI audit reports as they concern the DPR, a statement by NEITI said on Monday.
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The two agencies made the commitments in Lagos at a strategic meeting between the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, and the management of DPR led by the director of the agency, Engineer Sarki Auwalu, according to the statement signed by NEITI spokesperson Obiageli Onuorah.
Onuorah quoted Orji as describing the strategic meeting as encouraging in building inter-agency confidence and trust.
“We must applaud the DPR as a lot has changed. A lot is changing but also acknowledge that a lot more needs to change. The whole essence of NEITI’s interventions is to ensure that revenues from our natural resource assets support national development and help reduce poverty,” the NEITI boss said.
The transparency boss pointed out that NEITI’s work is to complement those of the regulatory agencies in the extractive sector in the country.
Dr. Orji stated that he and his team were at the DPR to “Seek partnership and collaboration; complement our efforts at building the Nigeria oil and gas industry and to work with the DPR on all the pending issues especially on the remedial issues, findings and recommendations in the NEITI reports.”
He described NEITI as “the needle that is needed to deflate the balloons (companies and government agencies) for a breath of fresh air on prudent natural resource management. However, once the balloon is opening up, there is no need to deflate it any longer”.
The Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources, Engr. Sarki Auwalu, said the strategic focus of his agency is to grow the nation’s crude oil reserves from its present 36.89 billion barrels to 40 billion barrels and the gas reserves from its present 203 trillion cubic feet to 230 trillion cubic feet.
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