Accountability in Extractive Sector (AES) Cluster, in partnership with the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Niger-Delta Open Government Partnership Observatory (NOGO) and Media Initiative for Transparency in Extractive Industries (MITEI), with participants from the Technical Team on Beneficial Ownership from Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and the National Association of Energy Correspondents (NAEC), has advocated rapid uptake of beneficial ownership (BO) reforms.

They stressed quality, accuracy and utility of data to check illicit financial flows (IFFs) and revenue leakages based on law and regulatory frameworks for effectiveness of online register.
 
Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, in his opening remarks, said the oil and other extracted industries in Nigeria must be run transparently to develop the economy.
 
He gave the advice at a two-day training organised by AES on use of beneficial ownership information to improve natural resource governance in the country, noting recognition of the need to expand frontiers of Nigerians’ collective struggle for transparency and accountability nationwide.

The stakeholders emphasised that while the extractive industry remains the backbone of the nation’s economy, they, however, pointed out that Nigeria loses between $15 and $18 billion to IFFS yearly in same sector.

They noted that transparency of ownership and control of companies, partnerships, trusts and other legal entities that could hold assets and open bank accounts are critical to reversing the trend.
 
“The Nigerian government marked significant progress in the implementation of beneficial ownership transparency reforms by signing the Companies and Allied Matters (Amendment) Bill 2020 into law, launch of an Open Central Register of Beneficial Ownership (known as the Persons with Significant Control) for disclosure of all beneficial owners of corporate entities in the country and adoption of Beneficial Ownership Data Standard for the register on May 25, 2023,” the sector recalled.
 
The stakeholders said tackling corruption and financial crimes should be seen as a multi-agency task that cannot be implemented by only one government institution, observing that institutions also need beneficial ownership information to efficiently handle investigation and prosecution of those with ultimate responsibilities to tackle financial and economic crimes.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) harped on the need for establishment of a publicly accessible central register for warehousing personal information of persons that own, control and benefit from corporate entities.
 
Personal Assistant (PA) to Registrar General of CAC, Auwal Sani Ibrahim, said in its quest at advancing legal and technical requirements to achieve BOT reforms in the country, the commission has established PSC and begun collecting beneficial ownership data in line with open ownership’s data standard, while urging corporate entities to update their yearly returns and PSC to be active.
 
The experts sought strategic collaborations between CAC and relevant agencies like the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) for impact.