OIL MONEY: FG Inaurates Team To Recover Missing Revenue

As allegations of missing revenues in Nigeria's oil and gas sector have not died down, the Federal Government yesterday inaugurated an Inter-Ministerial task team to ensure the implementation of reports from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI). The team was directed to recover all unremitted revenues discovered from audit findings.

This was disclosed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Anyim Pius Anyim. He explained Nigeria consciously signed up to the Initiative based on a clear conviction "that once transparency was implanted in the management of the nation's abundant extractive resources, it will boost the Government's efforts towards poverty reduction, sustainable development, social harmony, as well as better investment climate."

He said the Federal Government fully supports the regular audit and prompt implementation of issues that may arise therefrom.

He charged the reconstituted task team to work closely with NEITI and ensure prompt recovery of all outstanding revenues due to the federal government from audit findings, and "make recommendations to government through the Secretary to the government of the federation."

Other responsibilities of the new task team include "to undertake any other measure desirable to ensure that recommendations by NEITI add value to on-going reforms in the industry and to advise the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on any issue in NEITI audit report findings that needs the council’s intervention."

In his own remarks at the occasion, the Chairman of the task team Ledum Mitee said the task team's reports would not be intended to witch-hunt but "for the purpose of identifying lapses with a view to correct them or better still close them."

Topics:Economy, Federal Government, Gas, Oil, Energy StoriesCompanies:Extractive Fuels Inc, SGF, Societe de Gares Frigorifiques et Ports Francs de GeneveCountries:Nigeria!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

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