How owners of oil, mining licenses will be exposed – NEITI

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) said it has unveiled two documents designed to push the boundaries of implementation of transparency and accountability in the extractive industries in the country.

The first document is the Roadmap on Beneficial Ownership disclosure while the other is an Open Data policy.

The Roadmap on Beneficial Ownership seeks to outline Nigeria’s strategy towards the implementation and fulfillment of Requirement 2.5 of the NEITI standard which among other things demands public disclosures of the real owners of oil, gas and mining companies that operate in Nigeria.

In a statement on Tuesday, NEITI reiterated that the roadmap provides comprehensive plans and actions designed to guide Nigeria in its implementation of beneficial ownership disclosure in the extractive industries.

The strategy document also identified the institutional frameworks that are required for effective implementation of ownership transparency, clarity on definition of beneficial owners.

The document also defined those who fall into the category of Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) and the reporting obligations expected of them as well as the challenges that may be encountered during the process of data collection, data quality assurance, accessibility and timeliness.

The NEITI standards require all implementing countries to publish their Beneficial Ownership Roadmap by January 2017 and commence full implementation by January 2020.

The NEITI open data policy also unveiled, is in keeping with the realization that the world is currently witnessing a global shift towards making data open and accessible.