To guarantee 2022 EITI validation: Gov´t trains stakeholders on use of declaration forms.

Officials pose in family photo with workshop participants

Government is leaving no stone unturned in ensuring that the 2022 report of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, EITI, for Cameroon is validated come October 2025. 

This was the subject of a workshop organised by the Ministry of Mines, Industry and Technological Development, MINMIDT, to train stakeholders on how to fill in and use declaration forms of the EITI reconciliation for the 2022 financial year.



The Interim Minister of Mines, Industry and Technological Development, Prof Fuh Calistus Gentry, said for the 2022 report to obtain hitch-free validation, actors must correctly fill in these forms and work to meet required transparency and efficiency standards prescribed by the international body.

Prof Fuh Calistus mentioned specific areas to pay particular attention to such as providing climate change data and coming up with concrete actions to tackle climate change exigencies in line with yardsticks set by the international community.

The experts zeroed in on the National Hydrocarbons Corporation, SNH; which they say also needs to guard against obscurity in revealing details about ownership of extractive and exploitation contracts. 

Such, they said, have in the past, been a point of disagreement between the international body and local officials.

Minister Fuh Calistus also urged officials of the National Mining Corporation, SONAMINES, to work to improve transparency in giving details about gold mining and exploitation which he said the international EITI body continues to express worry about systemic obscurity.

Prof Calistus gave assurance that government has taken necessary measures to redress all issues raised by the international body that led to Cameroon´s suspension from the EITI.

Before assuring that the outcome of deliberations during the workshop would go a long way to making sure that the 2022 report would sail through scrutiny and get validated at the level of international EITI.

 

Specific achievements so far

For Becky Elvira Besong, Assistant Research Officer at the National Agency for Financial Investigation, NAFI, who is a member of the Cameroon EITI Committee, said Cameroon has made significant strides towards improving transparency in the extractive industries sector.

She disclosed that since the last suspension, there has been a few improvements in systematic disclosures of owners of oil and gas licenses. The same is true for production and export data which are published periodically on the websites of SNH and the MINMIDT, she said.

She added that SNH now publishes its audited financial statements; citing specifically the audit report of 2021, which she says civil society observers say, was the first time the oil corporation is doing so.

Besong expressed optimism that this level of transparency will, in due course, also be replicated in the mining sector with the new collaboration agreement signed between SOE expert partners and SONAMINES.

She said planned reforms at the Ministry of Finance, MINFI, with the introduction of the single Treasury Account is meant to strengthen systematic disclosures of extractive revenues accruing to the government; including those not transiting through the Treasury accounts such as SNH’s ‘direct interventions’ on behalf of the state, primarily for national security.

She said civil society groups also agree that Cameroon has progressed in publishing contracts in mining, but not in oil and gas. 

“In beneficial ownership transparency, Cameroon has established an enabling legal framework for collecting ownership data from companies in all economic sectors, but not yet to enable the public disclosure of this information,” she quoted a civil society organ as stating. 

While Cameroon EITI piloted data collection on beneficial ownership from all license-holders for the first time in the 2021 EITI Reports, reporting was limited, they insist. 

Cameroon’s efforts to expand beneficial ownership data collection to companies operating in all sectors of the economy are welcome, but equal attention should be paid to the public accessibility of this ownership data”, a document from civil society representatives showed.

She added that there are opportunities for Cameroon to more closely align its planned work on strengthening systematic disclosures of data required by the EITI Standard with ongoing reforms under the IMF programme and technical assistance from development partners such as the World Bank and other bilateral agencies.

 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3331 of Tuesday January 07, 2025

 

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