NNPC backs push contract transparency in petroleum sector

The CEO of NNPC Limited, Malam Mele Kyari expressed the support of the Corporation to ensure that all contracts in the oil and gas industry are made open for public scrutiny.

Kyari stated this at the National Extractive Dialogue organized by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, in partnership with Space for Change in Abuja with the theme: Making Natural Resources Work for All.

The NNPC CEO who was represented by the Group General Manager, Governance Risk and Compliance, Mr. Chris Akamiro, noted that the Corporation had since 2015 taken steps to open up its books to the Nigerian public with the monthly publications of its financial reports and the publications of its audited annual financial statements.

According to him, “As part of our transparency journey, we have understood that disclosing contracts supports open, fact-based dialogue that can help build trust, reduce conflict, and reinforce a company’s social licence to operate.

“We have therefore, since November 2021, been working with NEITI as part of a joint committee with other stakeholders to implement contract transparency in Nigeria. The committee amongst other things is to develop a contract transparency implementation road map. The road map will aid NNPC in systematically disclosing its contracts. This is also in line with PIA 2021”, he added.

Earlier, the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji explained that the dialogue was designed to provide companies, governments and civil society and development partners in the extractive industry a platform to discuss three contemporary issues of contract transparency, extractive resources benefits sharing and energy transition in West Africa, with a focus on Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal.

“The overall goal is to enable governments, companies, civil society and communities to evaluate the energy industry and proffer evidence-based policy recommendations for the efficient and effective management of natural resource benefits and the transition from fossil fuel to a renewable energy regime with these countries as case studies”.

Dr. Orji pointed out that “transparency and information sharing among stakeholders is the first step and necessary entry point to an equitable sharing of natural resource benefits. The need for disclosures across the extractive industries’ value-chain and empowerment of accountability actors is the basis for establishing NEITI”.

“The sharing of natural resources benefits among governments, extractive companies, investors and communities should transcend monetary values and profits and address issues of injustice and inequality in the extractive sector value-chain.

“Critical questions such as what benefits are to be shared, the sharing formula and when and how these benefits are shared, sanctions for infractions and redress mechanisms are the many questions that this Dialogue should provide answers to”.