NEITI will ensure solid minerals sector doesn’t repeat oil/gas sector’s mistakes’

Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) says strategic measures are being put in place to ensure that solid minerals, which is part of the extractive sector, does not suffer the same challenges that oil and gas sector faces when it starts gaining traction in the future.

The organisation observes that Nigeria is not maximising the opportunities inherent in the solid minerals sector in the area of jobs, growth, wealth creation and diversifying the economy, stressing that NEITI is out to fix these challenges.

Waziri Adio, executive secretary of NEITI, who made this known when he led a team from the organisation on an official visit to BusinessDay headquarters in Lagos, Wednesday, said the focus on solid minerals was important because Nigeria was in the process of diversification, especially in the extractive space, saying there was need to ensure that if there was boom in the sector tomorrow, the mistakes that were made in oil and gas were not repeated.

Adio, who observed that the solid minerals sector was playing below its weight, said in the 1960s the sector used to contribute about 5 percent to Nigeria’s GDP, but now it was below 1 percent.
On the expansion of NEITI at a time of financial difficulties, Adio said the organisation was strategically out to do more work with fewer resources.
“We are out to leverage relationships and other resources. We are working with several organisations. How we position ourselves to be able to take advantage of these relationships will determine how well we do,” he said

He pointed out that the organisation, which has been in existed for 13 years, had done a lot of work in the process of publishing audit reports that had impacted industries and championed the desired change in the economy, and for stakeholders that play in the extractive space.

While commenting on the organisation’s efficiency in data collection, the executive secretary said the organisation had the capacity to carry out data collection functions adequately, as manifested in various published reports.

He however acknowledged that the body had been behind schedule in releasing results, owing to certain bureaucratic challenges, which they were working assiduously to overcome.

He further said that each published report represented a retrospective work that had lessons for the present, adding, “the work that NEITI does is very critical to ensure the right steps are taken to correct the challenges that stakeholders in the extractive sector face.”

Frank Aigbogun, publisher/CEO, BusinessDay newspaper, observed that NEITI was a forward looking creation of government whose functions impact the business landscape, creating efficiency, especially how the revenues of organisations help to promote accountability and transparency.