Frank Tietie, alternate member of the Civil Society Steering Committee of the National Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has been invited to attend the National Extractives Dialogue on ‘ Making Natural Resources Benefits Work for All’. This is contained in an official invitation letter signed by the Executive Secretary/CEO of NEITI, Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji.
Tietie, a development law expert, Arise News official legal-news analyst, and the Executive Director of the Citizens Advocacy for Social & Economic Rights (CASER) has been scheduled to moderate one of the sessions at the national dialogue which will be held on the 21st of June 2022 and will be hosted by NEITI in collaboration with Spaces for Change (S4C) with support from the Ford Foundation.
NEITI under the leadership of Dr Ogbonnaya Orji has put Nigeria at the forefront of global compliance to beneficial ownership transparency. Until recently, there has been a notable obtuse opacity with regard to beneficial ownership of many international oil companies (IOCs) and other mining interests operating in Nigeria.
Nigeria now has a Beneficial Ownership Register which is open to the public by a simple internet search. According to NEITI: This register has been put together as part of Nigeria’s commitments to more transparent and more accountable governance of the extractive sector and beyond. Specifically, this register is in line with Requirement 2.5 of the 2019 EITI Standard, which stipulates that by 1st January 2020 all EITI-implementing countries (which includes Nigeria) are expected to “maintain a publicly available register of the beneficial owners of the corporate entity (ies) that bid for, operate or invest in extractive assets, including the identity (ies) of their beneficial owner(s), the level of ownership and details of how ownership or control is exerted”.
Issues on Beneficial Ownership in Nigeria have been widely considered in the new Companies & Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2020, which now makes the compulsory disclosure of beneficial ownership mandatory at the point of registration of companies in Nigeria.