The Executive Secretary of Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, has traced the trajectory of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), saying that reports by the agency between 1999 and 2004 enriched the idea of enacting the law.
Orji disclosed this while defending NEITI’s 2022 budget before the Senate Committee on Federal Character and Intergovernmental Affairs.
He said the idea of the bill to govern and regulate the oil and gas sector in curbing the wastages and corruption endemic in the sector came about from NEITI reports to that effect between 1999 and 2004.
The reports, he explained, exposed Nigeria as being one of the few countries of the world rich in both oil and gas resources, but without required revenues from them and invariably foreign and local investments for sustainable development.
Orji said: “It is gratifying today that an idea mooted through NEITI report for required laws to govern the oil and gas sector has come to fruition through the recently signed Petroleum Industry Act after many years of consideration as bill from the sixth to the present National Assembly.”
The NEITI chief executive was however taken up by members of the committee over failure by the agency to recruit workers since 2010.
Specifically, Chairman of the Committee, Senator Danjuma La’ah, asked why the agency has not carried out recruitments over the years despite having only 56 workers.
Orji, in his response, said NEITI had made the request, but is yet to get approval to recruit.