In many countries, money from oil, gas and mining is associated with poverty, conflict and corruption. Commonly referred to as the “resource curse”, this is often driven by a lack of transparency and accountability around the payment that companies are making to governments, and the revenues that government are receiving from those companies. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative ( EITI ) launched in September, 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development supports improved governance in resource-rich countries through the verification and full publication of company payments and government revenues from oil, gas, and mining.  The Initiative works to build multi-stakeholder partnerships in developing countries in order to increase the accountability of governments.

Good governance is a precondition for converting large revenues from extractive industries into economic growth and poverty reduction. When transparency and accountability are weak, the extractive industries may instead contribute to poverty, corruption, and conflict—the so-called “resource curse.” The EITI is an important step in defeating this “curse.”

The international community supports these efforts. The G8 countries issued a Declaration on Fighting Corruption and Improving Transparency at Evian in 2003. At Sea Island in 2004, Transparency Compacts were agreed with four countries. The IMF has promoted fiscal transparency in member countries via the Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency and the associated manual, while implementation of the Code is monitored through the production of Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSCs). Both the IMF and the World Bank promote more effective resource revenue management through policy advice, policy-based lending, project lending and technical assistance. EITI has also been championed by the UK Department for International Development.

A Statement of Principles of the EITI , agreed in March 2005, and relevant source materials may be found through the following links:

Country Implementation

The challenge is to translate the initiative into national action and to combat the inertia of the past practices and the culture of commercial secrecy.

As at March 1, 2007 , Over 20 countries have committed to EITI principles and criteria since the EITI Lancaster House Conference in June 2003. Some countries are only beginning to launch the process, while others have published revenue and payments data.

In this international context, The Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, known as the ‘NEITI', is recognized internationally as the benchmark by which resource-rich, developing nations are measured in terms of securing transparent reporting of financial transactions within the oil and gas sectors. This landmark reform initiative, launched in 2004, has yielded the first-ever comprehensive financial, physical, and process audits of Nigeria 's oil and gas sectors for the fiscal years 1999 through 2004.

The final audit reports, as well as a wealth of additional information pertaining to the NEITI and Nigeria's oil and gas sectors, is available to the public at www.neiti.org .

S. S. Afemikhe Consulting Limited and her accounting arm S. S. Afemikhe & Co. (Chartered Accountants) are pleased to support NEITI giant transparency initiatives by working with Hart Group the international auditors that carried out the comprehensive audit of the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry discussed above for 1 January, 1999 to 31 December, 2005