THE Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has launched a mobile application, REMTrack,  for tracking transparency and accountability issues in the oil and gas industry.

The Executive Secretary of NEITI, Waziri Adio presented the technology tool developed and deployed by OrderPaper Advocacy Initiative in conjunction with the Civil Society Steering Committee (CSSC) of NEITI in Lagos.

The NEITI boss while delivering a keynote address before the unveiling of the app, noted that the app is a major milestone in attempts to fix remediation, track issues and implement recommendations arising from his agency’s report, a statement on Tuesday disclosed.

He said REMTrack was also a major milestone for the CSSC, NEITI and Nigerians should take credit for its emergence especially those who birthed the process.

Adio said the app is a remediation tracker and is a critical part of NEITI, noting that it focuses on transparent and accountable governance of the nation’s extractive resources.

“We do 3 things; we do reporting, which is publishing the audits, we do dissemination because there is no need just publishing so if we do the audits we have to disseminate it to critical stakeholders and beyond that, we so what is known as remediation,” he said.

Adio urged Nigerians to take advantage of the app, especially as it leverages on technology to solve problems, which nonetheless is the order of the day.

He, however, cautioned against viewing remediation in money terms only and called for a focus on how to fix systematic procedural issues that keep knotty issues from reoccurring.

Kolawole Banwo, Chairman of the CSSC of NEITI, said the RemTrack tool would enhance easy engagement by all and make accurate information readily available for use at any time. He expressed fulfillment over his participation in the success of the app.

Also speaking, the representative of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Babatunde Odu, expressed delight about the RemTrack app, saying it would aid the commission to effectively carry out its functions.

He said the core mandate of RMAFC is to monitor accruals into the federation account and disbursement from the same account to the three tiers of government, adding that REMTrack will
provide essential information to even ordinary Nigerians on what exactly is being generated.

Although the information would be in the oil and gas and extractive industries, it would go a long way in enhancing the operations in RMFAC, he said.

The executive director of OrderPaper Advocacy, Oke Epia, assured that the app is not designed to humiliate or deride anyone, but solely for the good of the country.

He assured the stakeholders in the oil and gas industry that the integrity and sanctity of data contained in the app have met the highest possible standards of co-creation and authorization.

“We are careful to place in the hands of citizens a verified and validated tool that promises only healthy, factual and evidence-based engagements we all will be happy about at the end of the day”.

He likened the mobile application to ConsTrack, a mobile app for civic engagements in budget and public projects tracking, stating that RemTrack app boasts of the highest standards of content verification and validation which have gone through layers of vetting across value chains.

REMTrack is a technology-for-development intervention built to organize the audit reports into user-friendly data on remediation issues, progress and outcomes of reconciliation, and the covered entities. The app is designed for android and apple devices to be used in mobile phones and other hand-held devices.