Oil producing companies operating in the country owe the Federal Government $9.81bn (about N1.3tn) in underpayment and non-payment of taxes on their operations, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has said.
The Chairman, NEITI, Mr. Ledum Mitee, disclosed this at a stakeholders’ forum on the Petroleum Industry Bill, according to a statement issued by the Director of Communications, NEITI, Mr. Ogbonnaya Orji, inAbujaon Sunday.
Mitee urged relevant government agencies responsible for the custody and management of extractive resources’ revenue, including the Federal Inland Revenue Services, Central Bank ofNigeria, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Department of Petroleum Resources to take practical steps to recover the outstanding money.
He explained that the debts were enough to wipe out the fiscal deficit in this year’s federal budget.
According to him, the debts, which accumulated between 1999 and 2008, have remained because the agencies responsible for their collection have not made adequate efforts to recover them.
The NEITI boss said, “The profound significance of the NEITI process in this regard arises from the salient highlights from the audit reports. The reports reveal that the Federal Government earned a total sum of $269bn from the oil sector within the period 1999-2008.
“Within this period, $92bn was received from oil-specific taxes; the sum of $5bn from non-oil specific taxes from oil companies, while $172bn was received from the sale of government equity crude.”
“The revenue loss due from under assessment/under payments has remained outstanding not just out of the refusal of the companies and covered entities to pay, but also, if not more, by the fact that the concerned government agencies have not made sufficient efforts to recover the funds, which the country desperately need, especially at this time,” Mitee added.
He expressed concerns that in spite of efforts by NEITI to provide important information and data on who got what and how in the oil and gas sector, the audit reports had not been fully utilised to optimise revenue generation.
Mitee gave an assurance that the board under his leadership would translate NEITI objectives into visible impacts on the life of the citizens, adding that revenues accruing to governments as revealed by the audits must be recovered and paid into the coffers of the federation.
via Punch
