By Ishmael Bayoh
The Senegal Extractive Industries and Transparency Initiative (EITI) has agreed to host the Sierra Leone Extractive Industries and Transparency Initiative (SLEITI) from November 17th to 23rd November, 2021 on an experience sharing mission.
SLEITI’s experience sharing mission is based on the fact that the EITI Senegal is performing very well on the extractive industries and transparency international.
The EITI International Board concluded that Senegal has achieved a very high score in EITI implementation. Despite challenges related to COVID-19, the country has used the EITI to strengthen extractives governance practices, inform public debate and shed light on Senegal’s legal framework.
Senegal’s extractive sector has evolved since it was last assessed against the International EITI’s requirements in 2018. While still mainly dominated by mining activities, recent oil and gas discoveries have attracted investment and generated new revenue streams, increasing scrutiny on the governance of those assets. The Board noted that Senegal had made swift progress in its five years of EITI implementation.
Validation confirmed that Senegal has used the EITI to support reforms in the oversight of the extractive industries and public financial management.
Senegal collects, verifies and publishes information on the beneficial owners of companies via its commercial register, Seninfogreffe. The data points on beneficial owners are not publicly available and information can only be accessed upon demonstrating legitimate interest. EITI Senegal separately publishes beneficial ownership data for 22 extractive companies through its data website, which is available to the public.
Making beneficial ownership data more widely available will enable public oversight over Senegal’s local content laws, which set the framework for employment of Senegalese nationals.
Sierra Leone became an EITI country in 2008 and achieved EITI Compliance under the old EITI Rules in 2014. On 17 June 2019, Sierra Leone was found to have made meaningful progress in implementing the EITI Standard. The International EITI Board agrees that Sierra Leone has made meaningful progress overall in implementing the EITI Standard. In accordance with requirement 8.3c, Sierra Leone was requested to undertake corrective actions before the second Validation on 17 December 2020.
The SLEITI Secretariat which is under the Office of the Vice President (OVP) will be led by Francess Alghali, the Minister of State, OVP.
