By Abubakar Yunus, Abuja
As calls continue to growing for transparency in the sector, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has issued a seven-day ultimatum for all lease and license holders to disclose the real owners of their companies.
The ultimatum was contained in a directive signed by the Commission’s Chief Executive, Gbenga Komolafe. According to the directive, license holders were instructed to provide information on the identities of the beneficial owners, the level of ownership, and details of how control is exerted.
NUPRC stressed that the full list of real owners of the companies should be submitted to the commission. The new directive released by NUPRC was tagged, “Notification No. 1 to All Licence and Lease Holders in Nigeria on the Requirement for Submission of Beneficial Ownership Information.”
The move comes on the heels of the recent release of a beneficial ownership register by the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), and the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). Komolafe had also recently hailed NEITI’s efforts in the promotion of an open and accountable system in the management of extractive resources, explaining that NUPRC and NEITI share a common vision of transparency in Nigeria’s energy sector.
According to him, the NUPRC is fully committed to working with NEITI to deepen Nigeria’s implementation of contract transparency and beneficial ownership disclosures in the country. He stated, “At the NUPRC, we are implementing the beneficial ownership reporting system, as it is a statutory requirement, which demands full disclosure of beneficial ownership information. The commission is engaging the oil and companies to ensure their mandatory compliance.”
“The commission hereby requires all entities that apply for or hold a participating interest in an exploration or production oil and gas license, lease or contract to provide information of their owners, including the identity(ies) of their beneficial owner(s), the level of ownership and details about how that ownership or control is exerted.
“Accordingly, all relevant persons are hereby required to provide the information of persons with significant control over them: A person with significant control means any person directly or indirectly holding at least five per cent of the shares or interest in a relevant person.
“Or a (person) directly or indirectly holding at least 5 per cent of the voting rights in a relevant person; and directly or indirectly holding the right to appoint or remove a majority of the directors or partners in a relevant person,” the NUPRC helmsman said.
