I am pleased to inform you that the EITI has designated Sierra Leone as EITI compliant and its suspension is lifted as of 26th April 2014.” This was an extract from the Chair of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Clare Short EITI lifting the suspension of the country.
During a press conference marking the success of this, the Chief of Staff Richard Konteh in his statement said they are happy for the achievement that the country has made but that this is just the beginning of a long journey ahead.
He said in February 2013, Sierra Leone was suspended from the EITI for failure to comply with four requirements that the International Board considered as unmet. These four unmet requirements were failure by mining companies to complete their template and to submit audited reports, also three local councils failed to submit their reports, six chiefdoms also failed to submit their audited reports and also all of the reports were not certified by the Auditor General.
Dubbed also as the Champion SLEITI, the Chief of Staff commended all the mining companies and the Ministries, Departments and Agencies for their compliance to the process thereby helping in the compliance of the country.
He stated that Sierra Leone is not in the process because they want to satisfy the EITI secretariat but that they believe that it is for the betterment of the country and for the citizens to benefit from the revenues of the natural resources and this can only happen if we allow the process to be transparent and this is all what the EITI is about.
The Chief of Staff disclosed that in 2010, the country only realised $20.5m from its minerals and this was increased to $30m in 2011 but was less than 1% of the country’s GDP but with the improvement by 2020 the revenues from the oil, gas and mining will increase to 17% of the GDP.
The Acting National Coordinator of SLEITI Secretariat Mina Horace in her statement compared the process to that of a book written with lots of chapters but one author whereas the EITI process has lot of chapters but different authors.
She gave a background to the process starting with the country signing up for the EITI in 2006 and attained candidate status in 2008 and since then the country has produced three reconciliation and two validation reports and that the country has now become the 26th compliant country in the world.
According to the compliance, Sierra Leone must revalidate within three years, that is validation will commence on 25th April 2018, and is expected to produce EITI reports annually. EITI reports should cover data not older than the second to last complete accounting period.
By Betty Milton
Wednesday April 30, 2014
