BREAKING NEWS, Oil & Gas
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The federal government’s delay in appointing board members of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Initiative may cost Nigeria its leadership role in Africa
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Nov 16, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT |
THE Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, EITI is worried over the delay by the federal government in constituting a new National Stakeholders Working Group, NSWG, for the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI. Marinke Van Riet, international coordinator, Publish What You Pay, PWYP, an influential civil society organisation, CSO, member of the EITI, explained that with the non-existence of a functional NSWG, Nigeria stands the risk of losing its validation next year and its leadership role amongst other EITI implementing countries.
Riet told journalists recently that the dissolution of the NEITI board and its implications was a major topic of discussion at the last EITI board meeting which held last month in Switzerland. According to her, the global body had considered the implications of the development and expressed hopes that a new board would be in place soon to continue to advance the EITI ideals in Nigeria.
“We are very concerned about the dissolution of the NEITI board and the implementation of the NEITI process. The fact that you have a report that need to come out before 31st of December, 2015, and needs to be endorsed by the Multi-stakeholder Group, MSG, if you don’t have any, you are at risk of suspension, plus validation is starting early next year if you don’t have an MSG on board you will not pass validation. So, Nigeria is potentially facing a crisis,” she said.
Riet noted that beyond the implication for Nigeria, the development also poses a potential crisis for other countries looking up to the country as a model in the EITI implementation. “Nigeria might lose its leadership position and people are looking up to Nigeria, what Nigeria is doing is sort of copied elsewhere, so this may have consequences for other countries.”
She added that on a larger scale, the development could further have adverse effect on EITI’s global priorities. “I would say Nigeria is really seen as a leader, Nigeria is always consulted on whatever happens in the EITI worldwide. Nigeria is a very important country for the EITI, so what is happening today may have adverse implications for the EITI globally.”
Riet also commended the overall participation of CSOs in the EITI process in Nigeria, adding that the innovation of the EITI-CSOs steering committee as well as the active participation of CSOs on the NEITI board was commendable. She stated, however, that the next step would be to make sure that the communities on the ground are also engaged in the NEITI process, a new shift she expects the CSOs to play a key role in.
According to her, PWYP would be focusing on this new shift in the next two years, with a view to ensuring wider communication of the NEITI process at community levels. She explained that PWYP was also looking at a situation where civil society groups at the national level would help advance the new issues around beneficial ownership and contract transparency as a requirement that EITI implementing countries would adopt.
“Keep in mind that the EITI standard is not the ceiling, it is the floor and the EITI is what you make of it nationally. So, we want to see Nigeria taking a leadership role and implementing beneficial ownership and contract transparency. What we have managed to do in the last 14 years is that we have managed to get revenue transparency mainstreamed as part of the development priorities. It is now mainstreamed all across oil producing and resource rich countries. However, there are so many elements on the value chain where corruption takes place where we haven’t been able to access whether citizens are getting a fair deal, so there’s still a lot of work to be done. But more and more CSOs are demanding a better deal for their countries, so you are looking at local content and fiscal regimes, those are really the new frontiers that we are going to be working on,” she said.
The government had earlier in June dissolved the boards of all its agencies, which also affected the NSWG of NEITI.
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