A global organization that advocates for transparency in the oil and mining industries, known as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, has expressed concern on Friday about the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative’s distribution of outdated data.
The PUNCH reported that EITI tasked NEITI with making its data more timely, as the global organization encouraged Nigerian journalists to constantly keep both local and international transparency authorities on their toes when it comes to providing reports on time.
This occurred as NEITI said that its 2022 and 2023 audit reports for the oil, gas, and mining sectors would be available in September of this year.
The most current audit reports for the sectors, as issued by NEITI, were for 2021.
Speaking at a press briefing in Abuja after meeting with NEITI and other sector agencies and ministries, as well as MPs, EITI’s Deputy Executive Director, Bady Balde, stated that NEITI’s 2021 reports were out of date.
He stated that the EITI delegation informed the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Ogbonnaya Orji, and his management team at one of their meetings.
Balde stated, “One of the concerns we had with Dr Orji and the top management team was that the data in Nigeria is pretty old by the time it is released.
“The most recent data covers 2021 and was published in September 2023. As members of the media, I assume you want to cover current and topical subjects, thus that is not satisfactory.
“We (NEITI) are currently going after 2022 data, which is significantly delayed. I bring this up because a lot of countries have discovered ways to create data that is far more timely than that.”
He said that Senegal already has statistics for 2022. “When you were producing 2021 data, they had already published 2022 data, and they are receiving 2023 data. I can assure you that by June, more than half of the essential data will be in the public domain,” Balde stated.
According to him, “NEITI is the world’s largest organization in terms of staff size. They have more than twice as many secretaries as we have. We have 50 members (of staff) in the international secretariat, but they have over 100 here,” he said.
The EITI representative argued that the NEITI data was outdated, adding that “you need to keep us on our toes to give you the information you need.” “This data is too old.”
Responding, Orji stated that the agency faced certain local challenges that contributed to the delay in report release, but that the concerns had been addressed.
He then promised his visitors that the NEITI extractive sector reports for 2022 and 2023 will be released in September.
“By September this year, the 2022 and 2023 reports will be issued, and we will proceed from there. We had the difficulty in the past. He indicated that the 2022 and 2023 studies are now being worked on and would be issued in September.”
