According to the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the federal government has recovered N2.6 trillion in income from oil companies. The government owes $3.6 billion to 51 oil corporations, according to the extractive sector watchdog.
This was revealed by NEITI executive secretary Orji Ogbonnaya Orji on Tuesday in Abuja during its civil society (CSO) and media engagement on Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) validation.
The EITI validation, which is carried out every three years, is a quality assurance system used to assess member countries’ compliance and progress in implementing its criteria, including Nigeria.
Mr. Orji stated that the debt was recovered as a result of NEITI’s financial report.
“By the time we release the 2021 report, any company owing Nigeria will have no choice than to invite EFCC to take over and handle it as an economic crime,” Mr Orji said.
He added that the recovery was a result of the agency’s appearance before the National Assembly to defend its stance based on the facts it presented.
NEITI recently published 2019 reports, which included a list of 77 oil and gas corporations that owed the government up to $6.8 billion. The National Assembly had summoned the organisation to defend itself by demonstrating how the figures were arrived at.
Mr Orji said as soon as the 2020 report was produced to confirm it, the corporations who wanted their names protected went to the appropriate organisations to pay their obligations. He said that the number of companies had been reduced from 77 to 51, bringing the value to 3.6 billion.
“Which shows that from the point we released that information, a lot of money came in. None of them disputed our report. Rather, they were giving excuses for why they did not pay. The money includes all taxes and VAT being collected by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and all royalties being collected by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC),” Mr Orji added.
