LEITI Defends Its 4th Report

The Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative for Liberia, (LEITI) has rejected the National Oil Company of Liberia’s (NOCAL) recent branding of its (LEITI) 4th report covering the financial year July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011, as misleading.

“The secretariat of LEITI fully stands by the 4th EITI Reconciliation Report for Liberia approved and launched on Thursday, May 16, 2013,” LEITI’s head of secretariat Samson S. Tokpah has said. “The secretariat is especially surprised given that NOCAL is part of the LEITI process and was involved in the reconciliation, review, and endorsement processes of the report.”

This comes barely 72 hours after NOCAL convened an elaborate news conference in Monrovia to announce that findings recorded by LEITI in its audit report, accusing the oil-sector of not accounting for some US$330,000 during the period under review, were misleading.

According to LEITI in its recently released of its 4th report, it found that within the oil sector, companies paid US$49,911,073.86 but only US$49,681,073.86 was paid into government’s coffers.  A difference of US$230,000 reported by companies as paid to the government but which government agencies did not report receiving, remains unaccounted for, the report reveals.

Also, a difference of US$100,000 arose because, while Liberia’s National Oil Company (NOCAL) recorded a receipt of US$300,000 from African Petroleum, the Ministry of Finance reported that it had received only US$200,000 from NOCAL, according to LEITI report.

But NOCAL’s president and chief executive officer (CEO) Dr. Randolph McClain on Monday told reporters in Monrovia that the fault had come from the University of Liberia (UL), not NOCAL, vehemently rejecting any suggestions that NOCAL had anything to do with the matter.

He said it was the UL that reported US$620,000 for the reporting period instead of the US$850,000 received by them for the fiscal period. He said the US$620,000 reported was not for the reporting period. The UL has, however, officially acknowledged the discrepancy and apologized to NOCAL for the embarrassment. The University Administration confirmed receiving US$850,000 from NOCAL.

NOCAL argued, however, that it was the University of Liberia (UL) Administration that mistakenly had submitted the wrong financial report to Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI), not NOCAL authority.

Dr. McClain also argued that the additional $100,000 was fully accounted for, unlike what was reported by LEITI.

But what didn’t go down well with LEITI during that NOCAL press conference was the oil company’s terming of LEITI’s report as misleading; this had prompted the extractive industry secretariat to convene its own news conference Wednesday, in Monrovia.

“NOCAL sits on the multi-stakeholder steering group which approved the report. At least two drafts of the reconciliation report (dated March 26 and April 23) were circulated to relevant government agencies, including NOCAL,” LEITI has said, defending the integrity of its report.

LEITI head, Samson Tokpah, then maintained that the information presented in the 4th audit report reflects clearly the information submitted to the Reconciler/LEITI by African Petroleum, NOCAL, and the University of Liberia: “there remains a US$230,000 variance between NOCAL and UL, and US$100,000 between African Petroleum and the Ministry of Finance, through NOCAL.”

“As a practice, the LEITI will shortly conduct a secondary review through an independent audit firm to resolve any discrepancies found during the reconciliation process. The LEITI Secretariat encourages concerned parties to submit additional information for the secondary review. Meanwhile, the Secretariat fully backs information contained in its 4th Reconciliation Report,” he told the news conference.
 

Joaquin Sendolo contributed to this report