From Uche Usim, Abuja
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) is set to commence enforcement of various sanctions in the extractive industry. To this end, it is entering into partnerships with law enforcement agencies of the Federal Government to whip non-compliant operators into line. Its Executive Secretary, Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, said that his agency would partner with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission(ICPC), and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) to achieve the aforementioned objective.
The NEITI boss, who disclosed this in Abuja while hosting a team from the Energy Correspondent Association of Nigeria, stressed that compliance had been a challenge to extractive industries transparency initiative.
He said, “One of the challenges we have in implementing the EITI is compliance and enforcement. You are aware that reports are published in Nigeria and is usually (a challenge) to implement.
“This is because agencies just don’t think to do so. If there are no sanctions or incentives; sanctions for refusing to implement, incentives for doing well, everybody moves on and that is the bane of our society.”