Senate asks NEITI on N960 million in employee costs

The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has come under fire from the Senate Committee on Public Accounts for a N960 million personnel expense in the 2022 budget that was allocated to 43 staff.

Executive Secretary of NEITI, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya, said N960m was assigned for staff costs and N760.9 m was earmarked for overhead costs while submitting the budget to the committee. He added that capital expenditures received N344m.

He continued by saying that 51% of the human costs had already been incurred. He pointed out that just 50% of the capital had been disbursed because 58% of the overhead costs had already been spent.

However, in his answer, the committee’s chairman, Mathew Urhoghide, voiced worries about the agency’s wasteful expenditure, asserting that as of November 2022, the organization had already spent 51% of its employee costs. He said that the agency’s excessively high personnel costs were the cause of this.

You only paid for 51% of your employee costs in November, he stated. You only have two months and have just received 51% of your people cost, thus your personnel cost is too high.

“This is one instance of an excessively large personnel budget. We are asserting that it is a systemic leak. Your personnel costs will be cut to less than N500 million by our efforts.

In response, the executive secretary stated that although the agency had initially solely covered oil and gas, it has now expanded to cover solid minerals and needed more personnel to carry out its duties.

The executive secretary of NIETI reports that the organization now employs 43 people.

He claimed that the procedure of hiring extra employees had just been completed and that the agency had received authority to do so. This funding was included in the budget for 2022.

He further stated that IPPIS had already taken note of the newly hired 70 staff workers and that they had not yet received payment.

Ibrahim Danbaba, a committee member, requested the NEITI executive secretary present the agency’s nominal position in order to verify what he told the MPs.