NEITI releases 2015 compliance ranking for oil and gas industry

• Board appoints auditors

ABUJA – The on-going Independent Audit of the Oil and Gas Industry covering 2015 by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has recorded 94% compliance by companies and relevant government agencies.

Fourteen companies topped the ranking table with a maximum score of 100%. The companies are Chevron Nigeria Ltd, Consolidated, Continental, Eroton, Esso Exploration, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited and Niger Delta Petroleum Resources. Other oil companies within the 100% compliance ranking include Nigeria Gas Company, Orient Energy, Star Deepwater Petroleum and Waltersmith Petroman.

Remarkably, two government agencies, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board also recorded 100% compliance in the ranking. Similarly, five companies namely, Shoreline, Statoil, Petrobas, Mid Western and ND Western, scored between 98% to 94% to book their respective places in the top compliance ranking category.

In the same direction, twenty companies scored between 80% and 88% while twelve others recorded between 72% and 75% in an exercise industry experts have described as successful and innovative.

The Compliance ranking report further showed that only four companies representing 6% did not make submissions before the deadline. However, two of them, Aiteo and Network A&P made submissions to NEITI after the deadline while the remaining two companies Neconde and Prime Exploration failed to comply at all.

The criteria for the compliance ranking focused mainly on two major critical areas in the NEITI audit value chain. These are timeliness and completeness in submission of information and data requested by NEITI in the audit templates. While timeliness measured when the covered entities submitted the templates, the completeness considered how many of the applicable templates were submitted.

Speaking on the ranking exercise, the Executive Secretary of NEITI Mr. Waziri Adio remarked:  “We decided to rank companies and government agencies covered by the NEITI audit process so as to incentivize timely and complete compliance’’. Mr Adio added “given that this is the first time we are doing this, we are very impressed with the compliance rate. We commend the high fliers and call for improvement from others. We want to see a situation where all the entities score 100% possibly by next year.’’

The data collection and voluntary submission of information and data in NEITI/EITI Audit process is a major step in the independent audit value chain.

NEITI however states that  the exercise does not represent full compliance assessment with the audit process, as the audit is not yet completed. The agency disclosed that entities will be further ranked in terms of their cooperation with the NEITI auditors, the accuracy of their data and level of reconciliation, among others.

Meanwhile, the National Stakeholders Working Group (NEITI Board) has ratified the appointment of an indigenous company, Haruna Yahaya & Co to conduct the audit exercise (2015 Oil &Gas).

This was one of the key decisions taken by the NEITI Board at its meeting over the weekend. The Board’s decision followed the approval of the competitive contract process undertaken by NEITI by the Bureau of Public Procurement.

The firm had, in the past conducted two different cycles of audit for NEITI in the solid minerals sector. The Auditors are expected to conclude the assignment by November this year.