The Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) has indicated its readiness to support the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in tracking oil and gas revenue accruable to the Federal Government to ensure appropriate remittances.
The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Ahmed Idris, gave the pledge on Tuesday when he hosted the NEITI delegation, led by the Executive Secretary (ES), Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, in Abuja,
A statement issued by the OAGF’s Director, Press, Mr. Henshaw Ogubike, quoted the Accountant General as commending the NEITI on its effort to entrench probity, transparency and accountability in the management of the country’s oil and gas revenues.
According to him, the NEITI’s initiative is in line with government’s financial management reform initiatives.
To consolidate the gains recorded so far through the reforms, Idris advocated the integration of NEITI as an institutional partner in the Federal Government’s strategic revenue growth initiative, stressing that doing so will help government’s vision of improving revenue collection, mobilization and identifying additional sources of revenue.
It would be recalled that last week NEITI said it was difficult for anyone to know the quantity of crude oil being produced by the country.
The Executive Secretary was quoted as saying: “We do not have capacity to go deep shores to know how much we are producing. As we speak, it is very difficult for any Nigerian to ascertain how much actually we are producing.
“This is one of the challenges that NEITI is dealing with because if you do not know how much you are producing, how would you know how much you are expected to earn. Because the companies that go deep shore that are involved on offshore exploration are not indigenous Nigerian companies and they cannot really protect the interest of the country as much as Nigerians can”, Orji added.
