AFRICA

Gbajabiamila Advocates NEITI Act Amendment To Ensure Adequate Funding

The Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Tuesday said that the presidency may trigger the amendment of the law setting up the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) to ensure the organisation gets adequate funding for its work.

Speaking during a visit to the NEITI headquarters in Abuja, Gbajabiamila described NEITI as the backbone of the extractive industry in Nigeria, given its core function of ensuring transparency and efforts at freeing Nigeria from the ‘shackles of corruption’ and other financial crimes.

He acknowledged that prior to the establishment of the organisation, there had been a lot of opaqueness in the oil, gas and mining sectors, but explained that since the advent of NEITI, it had largely fulfilled its mandate of plugging many financial holes in the sector.

“This is a reform institution and you’re carrying out your reforms in a way that meets the international best standards. Obviously, there will be other things that we may need to look at.

“Again, working with you as it relates to funding, in terms of not getting anything from the work that you do, we’ll look at an amendment to the law, a new legislation, and we’ll be looking to you to make proposals, we’ll look at it, and see how far we can go with that,” the chief of staff said.

Having worked closely with the organisation as Speaker of the House of Representatives, he lauded the Dr Ogbonnaya Orji-led NEITI for passionately pursuing the interest of Nigeria.

On the reason for the visit, Gbajabiamila described it as ‘anomalous’ for the presidency to have agencies such as NEITI under it without really knowing exactly the extent and the depth of what they do and how they do it.

“There’s still a lot to be done, as you rightly observed, in terms of the funding, and we’ve seen that ourselves, as opposed to hearing from you. You talked about funding, which obviously is a perennial, constant problem.

“We’re hopeful that moving forward, we’ll collaborate a lot closer, work more directly with you, and be able to address that particular challenge to the extent that we can address it,” he added.

Also on the entourage of the chief of staff was the Permanent Secretary, State House, Olufunso Adebiyi, the Senior Special Assistant to the President, Administration and Operations (Office of the Chief of Staff) Mrs Oyinade Nathan-Marsh, along with other key presidential aides.

Gbajabiamila pledged to mobilise both political and social support for NEITI’s initiatives, ensuring that the organisation’s efforts to enhance governance in the extractive sector are sustained and expanded.

In his remarks, Orji noted that NEITI’s success in promoting transparency and accountability was largely dependent on the political will and backing of the government.

He expressed optimism that the visit would strengthen the partnership between NEITI and the federal government, explaining that the visit marked a significant step in the government’s efforts to bolster transparency and good governance in Nigeria’s extractive industries.

According to Orji, the job of NEITI includes blocking leakages, strengthening systems, and improving processes.

“By this, we help create an environment that fosters economic justice, environmental safety, and attracts investment. Since our inception, NEITI has made the extractive industry increasingly more open for public scrutiny to build a transparent and accountable sector.

“Our interventions have led to legislations. This office recommended the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) which is now passed under your watch and impactful reforms such as ongoing unbundling of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC),” he said.

Orji reiterated the recovery of revenues to the tune of over $7.2 billion due to its efforts, exploring that NEITI remains at the forefront of addressing global challenges such as climate change, energy transition, and combating illicit financial flows.

Meanwhile, Gbajabiamila on Tuesday expressed optimism that the presidency will take concrete steps to ensure Nigeria’s removal from the global Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Grey list before the May 2025 deadline.

Gbajabiamila gave the assurance during a fact-finding visit to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) office in Abuja.

Responding to a request from the Director and Chief Executive Officer of NFIU, Hafsat Bakari, who sought high-level intervention to meet the FATF action plan implementation deadline, the chief of staff pledged the federal government’s determination to address the deficiencies that led to Nigeria’s listing.

On February 24, 2023, Nigeria was placed on the FATF Grey List due to rising capital inflows and shortcomings in combating money laundering, terrorism, and arms financing.

The FATF is an independent intergovernmental organisation that promotes policies to protect the global financial system by evaluating jurisdictions based on their Anti-Money Laundering/Counter Financing of Terrorism and Proliferation (AML/CFT/P) standards.

Gbajabiamila who acknowledged progress made by NFIU, which has implemented 30 per cent of the action plan to address identified deficiencies, stressed the need for accelerated efforts to complete the remaining tasks.

He said: “I am a firm believer that no matter how much you achieve, one thing can destroy everything you have achieved. One rotten egg can spoil the whole basket.

”We have nine months left to exit the Grey List, and even being on that list is bad enough. That is not what we want for our country.

”Therefore, we will do everything we need to do because May 2025 is around the corner. You must furnish us with the information and the boxes that we need to tick. We do not want a fire brigade approach because May is around the corner; this is a high priority”.

He also assured the management of NFIU, which operates under the supervision of the State House, of continued collaboration with his office to enable the organisation to fulfill its role in protecting Nigeria’s financial system from threats such as terrorism financing, money laundering, arms proliferation and other violent crimes.

Earlier, the chief executive, Bakari, while highlighting NFIU’s achievements, noted that the agency had fostered inter-agency cooperation, connecting over 45 agencies to its intelligence sharing platform.

She also disclosed that 18 state internal revenue services had been connected to boost domestic revenue mobilisation in sub-national governments, while collaborations with federal government agencies had been established.

”One of the key projects we have commenced is the implementation of a monetary network framework following the recent Supreme Court judgment on the fiscal autonomy of local governments, ” Bakari said.

Addressing FATF-related challenges, the NFIU boss pointed out that NFIU had deployed significant human and financial resources to address identified deficiencies.

She added that the expanding use of technology by criminals, particularly in cybercrime and crypto currencies, required continuous upgrade of new hardware and software to combat the evolving threats.

Deji Elumoye and Emmanuel Addeh