Isiyaku Ahmed
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) will on today Friday, 6 November, 2020 unveil a platform that automates the data gathering component of its extractive industry audit process.
Director, Communications & Advocacy, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji in a statement said the platform was developed after series of needs and technical assessments and in close consultation with key stakeholders.
“The NEITI Audit Management System (NAMS) will move data gathering and submission for NEITI’s audits from the present manual mode to an automated one,” he added.
“This is a win-win for everyone involved in the NEITI audit process in terms of cost and efficiency gains,” said Waziri Adio, the Executive Secretary of NEITI.”
“One of the clear lessons of the moment is that automation is needed on many fronts not just for the future but even for the present. We are indebted to our stakeholders and supporters for seeing the need with us and working collaboratively to develop a platform that is fit-for-purpose.”
According to the statement, with NAMS, extractive companies and government agencies covered under NEITI’s audits can make their audit submissions in real time and in an environment that is more secure, convenient and efficient than the current one.
Deploying secure technology for data gathering will reduce the time and effort that all parties expend on the exercise and ultimately reduce the cost of the audits and improve the timeliness and usefulness of the reports.
The platform allows not only for virtual submission of audit data by assigned representatives of the entities but it also has facilities for aggregation, and initial validation and reconciliation of data submitted.
NAMS will be unveiled virtually on today by 10am.
The launch will be followed by an interactive session with companies and government agencies directly on the platform. There are also ongoing engagements with covered entities to make the migration as seamless as possible
The automated platform will be deployed for the 2020 NEITI audits and future ones.
NAMS was designed by Development Gateway with the support of Ford Foundation.
