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The Nigerian
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) wants erring oil
companies identified in the 2005 oil and gas industry audit report
sanctioned by the appropriate government regulatory agencies.

Assisi Asobie,
NEITI chairman, called on the reconstituted Inter-Ministerial Task Team
(IMTT) handling the implementation of the 2005 audit report to ensure
that all remediation issues raised in the document, including sanctions
against erring multinational oil companies, are implemented.

Some of the issues
included revenue flow interface between the oil companies and the
government agencies involved in their collection and management, need
to improve Nigeria’s oil and gas metering infrastructure, determination
of the cost component of calculating the barrel, human capacity
development, and general improvement of extractive sector corporate
governance practices.

Mr Asobie added
that since it was established in 2006, the task team has little to show
in clear advice on handling the issues identified in the report,
particularly those bordering on enforcement of sanctions against
indicted multinational oil companies that failed to remit appropriate
revenues and taxes to government.

At a workshop
yesterday in Abuja organised by the Coalition for Accountability and
Transparency in Extractive Industries, Forestry and Fisheries in
Nigeria (CATEIFFN) on ‘NEITI’s Road to Validation: Key Issues and
Challenges’, Mr Asobie said he was certain that Nigeria will attain
Extractive Industry Transparency initiative (EITI) compliant status
either by March 1 or latest mid-April.

He said Nigeria,
which is currently designated ‘candidate country’ and ‘close to
compliant’, has met virtually all the six remedial actions requested by
EITI during its Board meeting last October in Dar es Salam, Tanzania,
including publication and dissemination of the 2006-2008 audit report
and development and agreement on the National Stakeholders Working
Group (NSWG) Charter to strengthen the EITI process.

NEITI Executive
Secretary, Zainab Ahmed, said a draft report of the 2006-2008 audit has
already been discussed by the NSWG during its meeting last week, adding
that an enlarged meeting of all entities involved in the process is
scheduled for January 31 to approve give approval to the final draft,
to be disseminated to the public on February 1.