W/Bank pledges support to NEITI

The World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, has promised to give technical support to the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) for its next audit and metering infrastructure study.Marie-Nelly disclosed this when she led a delegation from the bank to visit the new chair of NEITI, Ledum Mitee, on Tuesday.

The country director promised to specifically assist NEITI in the conduct of a scoping study on the extractive revenue streams to the various tiers of government from the Federation Account.

This study becomes very imperative in view of NEITI’s determination to urgently conduct a resource allocation, disbursement and utilisation audit in 2013.The bank will also consider the request of NEITI to assist in the conduct of a study on the metering infrastructure in the oil and gas sector. Lack of an authentic study in this regard has deprived the nation of huge revenues in taxes and royalty calculations.

Other areas of support promised by the World Bank include the provision of a strategic analysis of NEITI’s 2009-2011 oil and gas industry report to be released shortly and collaborating with NEITI to see that the Inter-Ministerial task team undertakes measures to resolve several pending remediation issues contained in NEITI audit reports.