Publish-What-You-Pay Nigeria (PWYP), one of the leading non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that championed the cause for the passage of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Act, has commended the immediate past President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, for signing the bill into law shortly before he left office last Tuesday.

National Coordinator of the group, David Ugolor, who issued the commendation, assured that Civil Society Groups in the country would continue to work with government and all its agencies to ensure that the NEITI Law meets the principles and criteria of the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).

Obasanjo, while appending his signature to the document recently passed into law by the National Assembly, noted that he was delighted to carry out the exercise to leave a lasting legacy of revenue transparency in Nigeria's oil and gas as well as solid minerals industries.

Ugolor "We see the accent by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo formally bringing NEITI Act into being as a watershed in the annals of revenue transparency in Nigeria I the nation's oil and gas as well as solid minerals industries.

"We are particularly pleased that he had to sign it shortly before leaving office so that the new President, Umar Yar'Adua, will have a legal platform to continue the NEITI. We are glad that the new President, during his electioneering, expressed commitment to continue the process. In due time, we will follow up on the commitment," he added.

PWYP Campaign urged that with the NEITI Law in place, the process of nominating stakeholders into the National Stakeholder Working Group NSWG, prior to the approval of National Assembly must provide opportunity for all stakeholders to self-nominate their representatives in line with the EITI principles and criteria.

The Coordinator, Gender and Development Action (GADA), Tijah Bolton, equally called on Yar'Adua to immediately to initiate steps to implement the NEITI Law, as it would signal the readiness of his administration to move quickly to entrench a regime of transparency and accountability in the extractive sector, particularly in the oil and gas industry, which contributes over 94 per cent of the country's foreign exchange.

PWYP further expressed the hope that the NEITI Act would provide the enabling environment for the NEITI to carry out its proposed value-for-money audit aimed at ensuring that the financial accounting pertaining to Joint Ventures (JVs) and Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) fairly represents the actual costs incurred in exploring, extracting, and transporting oil, among other such aspects of oil production in Nigeria and also see how such costs associated with oil production in Nigeria are reasonably consistent with the cost associated with comparable international operations.