NEITI Restates Commitment To Due Process On Staff Hiring

The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has said it has not hired staff without due process.

It said in Abuja that the media report to that effect “is false, uninformed, misleading and lacking in fair hearing”.

Executive secretary, NEITI Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, made this clarification at the Induction training for its new staff.

“We are disappointed that the authors of the story never bother to either check with NEITI to get our comments for fairness and balance.

“However, let me reassure all Nigerians, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and our global partners that NEITI is certainly aware and quite sensitive to our public ethics and commitments to EITI principles,” he said.

He said the induction/training had been designed to introduce the staff to the world of transparency accountability in the management of oil, gas and mining sector through the instrumentalities of NEITI/EITI.

“You are joining our organisation at a time the issues of poor governance, lack of transparency and accountability in the extractive industry are of national and global concerns, especially in Nigeria.

“This Induction programme is one of the crucial steps that we have taken to prepare you for the task ahead and integrate you into NEITI’s culture and principles of transparency, integrity and accountability.

“The key message here is that there is a gap in NEITI that you have been recruited to come and fill,” he said.

He said to commence the recruitment, the National Stakeholders Working Group (NSWG) Human Resources Committee which conducted the exercise, reviewed more than 2,000 Curriculum Vitaes in NEITI Database from applicants under NEITI “Leave Application Behind” policy.