The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, is seeking approval of N1.5 billion from National Assembly for use to audit the oil and gas industry in 2020.
Executive Secretary of the agency, Mr Waziri Adio, while defending the agency’s budget before the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) Wednesday in Abuja, pledged to release 2017 audit report of the industry next week.
Adio said from 1999 to 2016, nine audit reports had been done in the oil and gas sector, while seven audit reports in the solid minerals had been released.
The proposed sum, according to the agency, will cover cost of its activities and consumables, including sporting events, publicity, local training, foreign trips, drugs and medicals, as well as monitoring and evaluation among others.
Giving a break-down of the proposal, the Executive Secretary said N828 million was earmarked for personnel cost, N337 million for overhead and N355 million for capital expenditure.
On the performance of the 2019 budget budget, Adio said that a total of N1.3 billion was appropriated for the agency, out of which a total of N789 million was earmarked for personnel cost, N277 million for overhead and a total of N267 million was for capital expenditure.
According to him, N557 million was released for personnel which represents 70.8 per cent, N138 million was released for overhead which represents 50 percent and nothing has been released for capital which represents 0 percent respectively.
He informed lawmakers that in 2018, the agency got overhead releases for seven, out of 12 months and in 2019 only six has been released out of ten months so far spent.
