Solid Minerals: NEITI tasks auditors on professionalism

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has charged its auditors to ensure a comprehensive and professional audit of the solid minerals sector of the country. Mrs Zainab Ahmed, NEITI’s Executive Secretary, gave the charge on Thursday in Akwanga, Nasarawa State at the agency’s maiden Solid Minerals Audit Template Workshop. Two indigenous auditing firms; Haruna Yahaya and Sada Idris, were recently appointed by NEITI for the audit of the solid minerals sector (2007 to 2010) and oil and gas sector (2009 to 2011).
“I wish to renew my call to the newly appointed auditors to approach this project with every commitment, care, professionalism, integrity, courage and dynamism.’’ Ahmed said the workshop would enable all the stakeholders in the sector to understand and bring their experience to bear on the project. She said the audit of the solid minerals sector, using the NEITI framework, would sanitise the sector and establish revenue flows. According to her, the move will also create confidence in investors and open up the sector for foreign direct investments.
Ahmed said that NEITI had already commissioned a mining scoping study to establish the base line information on the operations of formal and informal mining activities in the sector. “This project will also help provide relevant, current and reliable information and data on the amount of money that companies pay to government as tax, royalty and levies.’’ The executive secretary called on all companies operating in the sector to embrace transparency and cooperate with NEITI on the project. Mr Haruna Yahaya, the Chief Executive Officer, Haruna Yahaya & Co., in his presentation, assured NEITI of his company’s readiness to ensure an efficient audit of the sector. He said the company had mapped out a holistic strategy to ensure accountability and transparency in the sector. “We shall employ all available resources in the audit of the components of the Government’s financial transactions and reconcile them with the financial data of major players in the sector.’’