The Federal Government is considering legal action oil and gas companies that failed to remit outstanding taxes, royalties and levies to the Federation Account.
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, gave the warning on Thursday at a ceremony marking this year’s African Day of Anti-Corruption in Abuja.
The outstanding taxes, royalties and levies yet to be remited to the Federation Account stood at about $6.4 billion (N2.66 trillion),according to Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, the Executive Secretary, NEITI
At the event, Orji noted that while a large portion of the amount has been paid by defaulting companies
It warned that it will instigate action against those that have failed to remit the outstanding amount to the government.
It added:“All the companies who still doubt our resolve to sustain this drive that we will not hesitate to activate our standing agreements with relevant anticorruption agencies to recover the funds”.
He was represented by NEITI’s Director of Technical, Dr. Dieter Bassi, who stated that it was important that public resources were handled in a transparent manner.
He added:“We need fiscal transparency to ensure that public funds are used for the purpose for which they are meant. We need ownership transparency to ensure that those entrusted with public resources do not themselves become the principal beneficiaries of these resources.We also need ownership transparency to ensure that when public resources are stolen, we are able to track and recover them”, he added.