The oil and other extractive industries in Nigeria must be run transparently by President Bola Tinubu if he wants to truly move the country’s economy forward.
Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Awwal Ibrahim Musa Rafsanjani, who said this in opening remarks at the CSO Media Training in Lagos, tasked the president to make clear and public his anti-corruption agenda.
Platforms Africa reports that the two-day training organised by accountability in Extractives Sector (AES),. centred on the “use of beneficial ownership information to improve natural resource governance in Nigeria.”
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“Being the backbone of our economy, the extractives industry must be run
transparently and accountably,” Musa said.
The recognition of the need to expand the frontiers of our collective struggle for transparency and accountability in Nigeria, he continued, “has brought us here today. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) stresses the need for the establishment of a publicly accessible central register for warehousing personal information of
natural persons that own, control, and benefit from corporate entities.
While legitimate corporate businesses have an integral role in national development, the involvement of Politically Exposed Persons who conceal corruptly acquired wealth through the complex networks of companies deliberately created to hide their identities has further increased the risks they pose to non-fortified economies. The Glencore, Siemens, Halliburton an
Malabu oil scandals, to cite a few high-profile cases, had a net impact on revenue
leakages that were unbearable for the country’s finances and the citizens’
economic welI-being. Without transparent ownership of Nigerian and international companies operating within the Nigerian jurisdiction, we will not be able to stop the bleeding from illicit financial outflows, which costs us around 18 billion US dollars, annually.
“Nigeria proved its desire to implement beneficial ownership transparency (BOT) commitments when it participated in the
beneficial ownership pilot in 2015, signed up to the Open Government Partnership initíative in 2016 and complied with the principles and requirementsof the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) to establish a beneficial ownership (BO) register by 1t January 2020. NEITI published Africa’s first beneficial ownership register, and the first globally to focus on the lucrative oil, gas and mining sectors in December 2019.
“The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), on its part, made more far-reaching contributions to the process through the enactment of the 2020 Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), which gave legal backing and made provisions for a larger register for all corporate entities in the country. Further to this, the CAC, towards advancing legal and technical requirements to achieve BOT reforms in Nigeria, established a public Persons with Significant Control Register and is now collecting beneficial ownership data in line with Open Ownership’s data standard, making Nigeria the first country in Africa to do so.
“The expectation is that the Register would greatly enhance the fight against corruption and criminality by facilitating investigations
by law enforcement agencies into the true ownership and control of companies and limited liability partnerships; supporting civil society organisations in promoting citizens’ participation in public accountability and governance, as well as strengthening the capacity of the media to perform their traditional roles
as watchdogs of the society.
“In the course of these achievements, civil society partners sustained interventions to galvanize support from government and nonstate champions for the advancement and realization of this commitment towards a more transparent and accountable extractive sector governance regime.
“We must, however, not rest on our oars as the register is not an end in itself but a means to an end. While it remains a significant effort in thefulfilmentt of the
commitments to strengthen anti- corruption reforms and corporate accountability, it is only as important as its utilization in detecting, preventing, reporting and sanctioning corruption in the sector.
“It is towards the above end that we have convened this workshop in recognition
of the crucial role of the meia as the fourth pillar of democracy and the need for building local stakeholders’ capacity on the importance of quality and timely beneficial ownership data, and to share skills, tools and methodologies to analyse and use the data.
“As we look forward to this opportunity to strengthen and sustain the capacity
f CSOs and journalists to exercise their civic responsibility towards improving natural resource governance and the fight against corruption.”
