Oscarline Onwuemenyi 01 February 2017, Sweetcrude, Abuja – The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, says its industry audit reports would now be publicly available and accessible in reusable format.
This follows the launch of the “open data policy”, NEITI said in a statement, adding that with the development, data from the audits “should be accessible, freely used at no cost and can be shared and built upon by anyone”.
NEITI said it introduced the open data policy in keeping with the realisation that the world was currently witnessing a global shift towards making data open and accessible.
“This is also in compliance with the EITI (Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative) standards and the global shift towards open data availability, which is largely attributed to technological advancement and increasing demand for transparency and accountability by citizens,” NEITI noted in the statement signed by its Communication Director, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji.
The statement also said the open data policy required that the data be used anywhere and for any purpose without restrictions from copyright, patent or other control mechanism and must also be expressly excluded by the provisions of the laws of Nigeria.