The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative on Thursday revealed to the oil firms operating in the country its determination to activate its agreements with anti-corruption agencies in order to recover the pending oil companies’ debts to the Federation Account if the concerned firms fail to prove their indebtedness.
NEITI’s Executive Secretary, Orji Ogbonnaya, revealed at an anti-corruption event in Abuja that a sizeable number of oil companies had failed to clear their outstanding taxes, levies and royalties which in turn had summed up to $6.4bn into the Federation Account.
The Director of Technical, NEITI, Dieter Bassi who represented NEITI Executive Secretary, Orji Ogbonnaya mentioned that a huge percentage of the total amount had been paid by defaulting companies.
Meanwhile, he warned the oil firms with the outstanding remission of fund lest disciplinary action be taken against them to recover the funds.
“All the companies who still doubt our resolve to sustain this drive, we will not hesitate to activate our standing agreements with relevant anti-corruption agencies to recover the funds, ” he said.
He also encouraged transparency to ensure that those entrusted with public resources do not themselves become the principal beneficiaries of these resources. .
According to him, “We need fiscal transparency to ensure that public funds are used for the purpose for which they are meant. We need ownership transparency to ensure that those entrusted with public resources do not themselves become the principal beneficiaries of these resources.
“We also need ownership transparency to ensure that when public resources are stolen, we are able to track and recover them. “
- Tags: Company tax, Levies, NEITI, Royalties
