December 13, 2017 By Ibrahim Tarawallie
The secretariat of the Sierra Leone Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (SLEITI) is currently putting modalities in place for the country’s validation by the EITI Board in July 2018.
The essence of the validation will be to access the country’s progress in implementing the EITI against the 2016 EITI Standard, which was launched in February of the same year.
The Standard was revised to ensure that reports by countries are transparent about which recommendations government chooses to take on and why, and lay out plans for doing so. The 2016 Standard introduces new aspects and breaks new grounds.
All 51 countries of the EITI are expected to undergo validation over the next three years with a total of twenty-one (21) countries already validated.
The validation should reveal in some detail, the extent to which countries are becoming more open in how they manage their oil, gas and mineral resources.
During a pre-validation workshop hosted at the Buxton Memorial Hall yesterday, SLEITI National Coordinator, Mina Horace stated that some progress has been recorded over the years but admitted that there are still challenges to be addressed.
She said the workshop seeks to enhance the preparedness of the Multi Stakeholder’s Group of SLEITI for validation in 2018, as well as helping to identify challenges faced in implementing the EITI with strategies map out to address them.
Also, Deputy Head of EITI International, Eddie Rich said there are lots of challenges with regards understanding of how much money is coming to the extractive sector.
He observed that there was a lot that has been achieved by Sierra Leone under the EITI, but stressed that there is too much time spent on data collection rather than building awareness on the EITI process.
He disclosed that out of the 21 countries already validated; only the Philippines met all the requirements set.