EITI invites Sierra Leone's President

The global watchdog for transparency in the extractive industry is to set new standards which will be discussed and agreed at its sixth global conference in Sydney, Australia on 23 - 24 May 2013 to which Sierra Leone's president Ernest Bai Koroma has been invited. It comes months after the country's candidacy was suspended by the EITI Board for failing to comply. In a communication to the media the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) said the new standards would ensure transparency in even more areas of the management of natural resources. “When implemented, it will give media and citizens more access to 'follow the money' from a country's natural resources in the ground all the way into government budgets,” the release says. Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma is one of only two African presidents that have been invited to the conference. The other is Idriss Deby of Chad, whose last report was in 2009 with a draft report expected early this year. Sierra Leone is going to the conference suspended because it failed, for the second time, to meet its benchmarks in disclosing facts and figures of mining companies and their activities – the core of the initiative. The EITI board resolved on 26 February that the country’s performance in attaining those standards for 2011 and 2012 was unsatisfactory. The coordinator of National Advocacy Coalition on the Extractives, Cecilia Mattia, said that about 27 exploration companies were yet to comply with regulations in the industry. She said the ministry of mines and mineral resources was yet to explain why it had to upload on its online repository names of exploration companies whose threshold exceeded US$ 4,000, yet had failed to disclose those names to the Multi Stakeholders Group. The new standards will hopefully get industry players to open up more. Meanwhile, the suspension would be lifted if the board agreed the remedial actions were satisfactorily completed. “If suspension is in effect beyond 25 February 2014, the Board will consider delisting. Completing the remedial actions could be challenging if swift action is not taken in coming weeks, including ensuring all material payments and revenues are covered,” EITI says on its website.