Nigeria has scaled through the final global assessment of the implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in the country.
Announcing the result of the assessment on Thursday, the International Board of the EITI said Nigeria recorded an overall score of 72 points in the international assessment, which lasted for 11 months.
The global EITI announced this at its 58th board meeting, coordinated from its international headquarters in Oslo, Norway, and presided over by Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand.
According to the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the country was assessed on three major thematic areas of transparency, stakeholders’ engagement and outcomes, as well as impacts.
In these three major areas, Nigeria recorded her highest score of 92 points on outcomes and impacts, 71.5 points on implementing transparency-driven reforms in the extractive industry, and 52.5 points on stakeholders’ engagements.
In deciding on Nigeria’s rating of 72 points over 100, the board particularly noted NEITI’s effective implementation of EITI in the country with “visible and tangible impacts on extractive industry governance.”
The international board noted that the score of 92 points recorded in the area of outcomes and impacts reflected what the global EITI calls “NEITI’s robust system for developing work plans for implementation, monitoring and evaluation, dissemination and outreach.”
The 20-member board, chaired by the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Ms Helen Clark, applauded the impacts of NEITI in leading extractive industry reforms and governance in the oil, gas and mining sectors.
It said data integrity and access as contained in NEITI’s reports also recorded 90 points, which reflected that information and data from NEITI reports were not only credible but globally acknowledged to be comprehensive.
Reacting to the global assessment report, the Executive Secretary, NEITI, Dr. Ogbonnaya Orji, said “As an agency, NEITI expected a higher overall score for Nigeria given government’s support, stakeholders’ collaboration, the quantum and quality of work that NEITI has put in on behalf of the Federal Government in the past two years.
“Our expectation was an overall minimum score of 90 points in all the three major indicators.”
Source: Punch
