The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has announced that it is working closely with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to recover approximately $6 billion and N66 billion from oil industry players, for the benefit of the Federal Government.
Ogbonnaya Orji, the Executive Secretary of NEITI, revealed this on Monday during a budget defense session before the House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) in Abuja. Orji emphasized that the ongoing efforts are part of the agency’s broader mandate to ensure transparency and accountability in the extractive industries.
The NEITI and EFCC partnership targets to address financial mismanagement, fraud, and other irregularities in the oil sector.
Orji reassured lawmakers that these recovery efforts would significantly contribute to the national economy, ensuring that funds due to the government are duly returned.
He emphasized that the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) was established to promote transparency and accountability within the country’s oil, gas, and mining sectors.
He said NEITI is facing budgetary constraints. For the 2025 financial year, the agency has been allocated a total budget of N6.5 billion, which is broken down into N2.22 billion for personnel costs, N1.72 billion for overheads, and N2.58 billion for capital expenditures.
“In 2025, NEITI plans to undertake several critical activities aimed at enhancing sector transparency. These include publishing an industry report covering the oil, gas, and mining sectors; conducting fiscal allocation and statutory disbursement audits; researching the actual volume of petroleum consumed in Nigeria; assessing the economic impact of energy transition; and conducting a national perception survey on the implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Nigeria.”
The Executive Secretary briefed the committee on the agency’s recovery efforts, highlighting that over the past year, NEITI successfully recovered more than N3.7 billion in outstanding liabilities from companies operating in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.