THE Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, has\u00a0recanted its earlier position that it uncovered $22.8 billion unremitted\u00a0oil revenue by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.<\/p>\n
NEITI’s Director of Communication, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, said also that\u00a0media reports from the presentation attributed to NEITI that the nation\u00a0$8 billion annually through crude oil swap were not only wrong but\u00a0misleading.<\/p>\n
He said, “The media report from that presentation attributed to NEITI that\u00a0the nation losses $8 billion annually through crude oil Swap. This is not\u00a0only wrong but misleading. What NEITI presented and explained at that\u00a0was that there is no cost efficiency in the transactions with the\u00a0offshore processing organisations.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, Orji also noted that reports that the Agency uncovered $22.8\u00a0billion unremitted funds to the Federation Account, carried by several\u00a0newspapers were equally inaccurate.<\/p>\n
According to him, “What NEITI presented and explained at the public\u00a0hearing was that “the Federal Government, through the NNPC entered into\u00a0alternative funding\/financing arrangements with its JV partners in the\u00a0form of third party financing from external financial markets, i.e. banks,\u00a0and Modified Carry Arrangements (MCA) which are loans from existing JV\u00a0partners, IOCs.<\/p>\n
“NNPC’s share in the third party financing is paid to CBN\/NNPC crude oil\u00a0and gas Dollar revenue account and subsequently swept to the federation\u00a0accounts while under the MCA an escrow account is opened at the lenders’\u00a0bank into which buyers pay proceeds from the crude oil and gas sales.<\/p>\n
“NEITI observed that these transactions which sum up to $22.8billion are\u00a0off balance sheet items, not disclosed in NNPC’s audited financial\u00a0statements. The implication is that there may be significant contingent\u00a0liabilities to the federation that is not being disclosed.<\/p>\n
“We need to state further that it does not mean that NEITI has discovered\u00a0some funds hidden somewhere or monies that were unaccounted for by the\u00a0NNPC. That was why NEITI recommended that all alternative funding\u00a0should be disclosed in the audited financial statements of\u00a0NNPC for clarity and openness in line with the EITI principles.”<\/p>\n
He, however, expressed NEITI’s concerned that the contents of its\u00a0presentation to the legislative Committee “have been largely misconceived,\u00a0misinterpreted and misrepresented by some sections of the media,” even as\u00a0he thanked them for their continued support for the agency.<\/p>\n
Consequently, he said that “As an Agency with principles, methods,\u00a0procedures and mandate firmly rooted in transparency, accountability and\u00a0integrity, we are constrained to make some clarifications on key issues\u00a0that were certainly not correctly reported by the media following that\u00a0presentation.<\/p>\n
“This clarification has become necessary in the overriding public\u00a0interest, NEITI stakeholders, our international partners and the global\u00a0Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.<\/p>\n
Orji explained that, “NEITI’s presentation to the Committee was based on\u00a0the findings and recommendations of its 2009 – 2011 independent Oil and\u00a0Gas Industry Audit Report, is in the public domain and on the NEITI\u00a0website.”<\/p>\n
He added that “All relevant government agencies, relevant committees of\u00a0the National Assembly, companies, the media and civil society have copies\u00a0of the Report which was also made public since last year.”\u00a0According to an inside source, \u201ca major contributing factor to current\u00a0Fuel scarcity experienced in Nigeria, are these sort of sensational and\u00a0misleading headlines, that makes accessing international Finance to fund\u00a0Petroleum Product delivery into Nigeria very difficult, due to compliance\u00a0issues raised by such misleading headlines\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, has\u00a0recanted its earlier position that it uncovered $22.8 billion unremitted\u00a0oil revenue by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. NEITI’s Director of Communication, Dr.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n