By Mabinty M. Kamara
In an effort to ensure transparency and accountability in Sierra Leone’s mining sector, the Sierra Leone Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (SLEITI) has yesterday concluded the national sensitization and dissemination of its 2017 -2018 report across the country.
SLEITI is an offshoot of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global standard that promotes transparency and accountability in the oil, gas and mining sectors through disclosing and reconciling of company payments and government receipts in implementing countries. It was on this basis which the said report covering the period 2017-2018 financial year was produced.
The report, which was produced on the theme: ‘Maximizing the benefits of Mining to Local Communities,’ covers the gas sectors in Sierra Leone, registers of licenses; exploration, production and exports in the extractive sector; beneficial ownership; contract transparency; state participation in the extractive sector; revenue collection and allocation; social and economic spending; and the outcomes and impact of the EITI in Sierra Leone.
In his statement, the chairman of the occasion, Daniel Gbondo, noted that for far too long Sierra Leone has not been able to benefit from the proceeds of mining. He added that transparency and accountability of the mining sector is critical to growth, linkages and diversifications, which is why over the years governments have instituted structures to improve on how businesses in the mining sector are carried out.
“When I received the invitation to moderate this session, and looked at the theme, maximizing the Benefits of Mining to Local Communities, it reminded me of the poverty that continues to persist in mining communities; it reminded me of the irony poverty in the midst of plenty. When you go to mining communities you want to see development, when you go to mining communities, you want to see prosperity, when you go to mining communities you want to see that social service deliveries are up and running. Unfortunately, that has not been the case because of the way in which we have managed our mineral resources. But I am also aware that we do have the regimes within which we can better manage our resources,” he noted.
Gbondo went on to note some of the legal documents binding the effective management of Sierra Leone’s resources, such as the Sierra Leone Mineral’s Policy for transparency and accountability, the Mines and Minerals Act, the community development Agreement.
Speaking on behalf of the civil society, Cecelia Mattia, National Coordinator of the National Advocacy Coalition on Extractive (NACE), noted the role that the CSOs continue to play to ensure the effective implementation of the EITI in the country.
“Even though there are challenges, but so far, there has been an open door, open discussion within the Multi Stakeholders group on the processes and procedures, and so on behalf of us all, since we went round the communities, we have witnessed everything that happened in the communities and I was pleased that our people up country understand the issues because the questions they asked and the issues that came up were very challenging, telling us that they really understand what was going on,” she said.
She added: “On that note, civil society is happy to be part and we continue to play our watch dog role to ensure this report doesn’t only touch the areas we visited. We are in consultation with the SLEITI secretariat, that civil society will take a step further in reaching out to areas we have not visited because we want a national discourse of what the report is talking about and how we correct those issues.”
During that Presentation of the report, Mohamed Baimba Koroma, Program Manager, SLEITI, noted that the objective of the report is to foster transparency and accountability, attract investment opportunities by improving investment climates and to contribute to public debate.
Similar sessions have been held in all the regions of the country.
Sierra Leone joined the EITI in 2008, with a view to enhancing good governance and transparency in its extractive sector.
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