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Senate Public Accounts Committee (SPAC) has queried the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative(NEITI) over N960 million personnel cost in 2022 budget for 43 staff.
Executive Secretary of NEITI, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya had appeared to present his 2023 Budget before the Public Accounts Panel for the first time.
While presenting the budget, Dr Orji read the 2022 budget performance to the Committee, saying the Personnel Cost of the agency is N960 while overhead cost is N760.9 million and the Capital budget is N344 million.
Explaining further, he said 51 percent of personnel cost has been spent while 58 percent of overhead cost spent and only 50 percent of capital has been released so far.
But, the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Mathew Urhoghide, in his response wondered how could the agency spend only 51 percent of his personnel cost as at November 2022, saying this is the case of overbloated Personnel Cost in the agency.
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He said, “you have only taken 51 percent of your personnel cost in November, your personnel cost is really really too high, you have only two months, you have just collected 51 percent of your personnel cost.
“This is one case of personnel budget overbloated, what we are seeing is that it is systemic leakage.
“We are going to reduce your personnel cost to less than N500 million.”
Responding, the Executive Secretary explained that when the agency started operations, it is only on oil and gas, but now, the agency has moved into solid minerals and the agency needs more manpower to carry out its operations.
The agency currently has 43 staff, according to NIETI Executive Secretary.
He said the agency had the approval to recruit more staff and this was made available in the 2022 budget and the process has just been concluded.
He added that the newly recruited 70 staff are already captured by IPPIS and not yet being paid.
However, Senator Ibrahim Danbaba, asked the Executive Secretary of NEITI to submit the nominal role of the agency to ascertain what he told the lawmakers.
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