Senate sets up ad hoc committee to consider NEITI findings

Following its consideration of the 2013 Audit Report of the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, NEITI, which exposes discrepancies of billions of Naira in Nigeria’s extractive industries, the Senate has set-up an Ad Hoc Committee to look into the findings of the report.

The ad hoc committee is also to develop ways of ensuring that findings of irregularities in the oil, gas and mining sectors have agencies that are established by law to enforce findings of discrepancies.

According to a post on the Facebook page of the Senate President, “it is important to find out why nobody acted on this report for 3 years, and how $518million has been unaccounted for.”

The NEITI report also showed that several federal government assets were either significantly undervalued or transferred with no proof of purchase made.

The post continued, “As there have been no prosecution based on this report to date, moving forward, the Senate will task the executive branch to ensure the recovery of the unremitted funds; prosecute all those found culpable; and take new legislative action to strengthen NEITI to do more work in this direction.

“We must continue to fight corruption by plugging leakages like this one that go unchecked, instead of paying “lip service” to this issue.

“Finally, I must commend Mr. Adio and the entire leadership of NEITI on a job well done so far. They have done a commendable job of working for the accountability of the sectors under their purview.”

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