The Senate Committee on Public Accounts has given the CBN, NUPRC, NDDC, NEITI and other defaulting agencies 72 hours to appear before it after their absence stalled Monday’s oversight hearing on NEITI’s 2021-2023 oil and gas audit reports.
Nigeria’s Senate is done waiting. The Committee on Public Accounts has slapped a 72-hour ultimatum on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), and other agencies that have repeatedly skipped invitations to respond to audit queries.
According to The Cable, the no-shows brought Monday’s proceedings to a standstill, derailing the committee’s special legislative oversight and public hearing on NEITI’s oil and gas industry audit reports covering 2021, 2022 and 2023. The hearing was meant to dig into the reports detailing operations, revenues, payments, remittances and financial obligations of stakeholders across Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
Beyond reviewing the audit findings, the committee is tasked with assessing whether ministries, departments and agencies, government-owned enterprises, regulatory bodies and oil and gas operators are complying with the constitution, the NEITI Act, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and other financial regulations governing the extractive industry.
More than 50 public institutions and oil and gas companies had been invited to appear before the committee across a window running from August 3 to August 25. Yet when Monday’s opening session got underway, officials from the CBN, NUPRC, NDDC and NEITI simply weren’t in the room — and none of them offered any formal explanation for their absence.
The snub has now triggered the committee’s 72-hour ultimatum, putting the affected agencies on notice as lawmakers push to get the long-delayed oversight process back on track. With the hearing schedule extending over three weeks and dozens of institutions still expected to appear, the committee’s handling of these initial no-shows is likely to set the tone for how seriously other invited agencies and companies take the remaining sessions.
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