Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — Stakeholders in the extractive industry, have faulted the level of transparency in oil and mining sectors contracts, assuring that passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill would address the misnomer.
The stakeholders are, the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, the Centre for Transparency Advocacy, CTA and the Media Initiative for Transparency in Extractive Industries.
To this end, the stakeholders have charged the National Assembly to hasten the process for the passage of the PIB, explaining that the bill would enhance transparency in extractive industries contracts.
Speaking at a media roundtable with focused on contract transparency in the oil and mining sectors, Executive Secretary, NEITI, Waziri Adio, represented by an official of the agency, Kazeem Inaolaji, said passage of the PIB would not only boost transparency in contracts, but also help to address secrecy in some of the deals.
Also speaking, Executive Director of CTA, Faith Nwadishi, said findings by her organisation and other partners, showed that many contracts in the extractive industries were not publicly disclosed.
Nwadishi disclosed that such contracts include those awarded to service companies for the production of oil and gas from various mineral assets held by joint venture arrangements.
Presenting some of the findings in the report, CTA disclosed that the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC were joint venture partners in many of these contracts.
