Freetown — The adoption of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) report by Sierra Leone, according to US-based firm Verdi Consulting, is a very important step towards greater transparency of revenues and payments between the government and the society.

According to the Presidential and Public Affairs minister, Joseph Manor Koroma who doubles as minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources, the majority of citizens have not benefited from the mineral wealth as much as they could since its discovery in the 1930s and that the benefit was only restricted to a selected few, a situation he said fueled the country's eleven-year civil war.

"The publication of the first EITI reconciliation report is reckoned as one of the series of reconciliation reports intended to address the issue of transparency and accountability that has plagued the extractive sector in Sierra Leone for decades," the minister observed. He said the EITI was an initiative set to achieve global transparency and accountability standards for mining, oil and gas industries to enable countries implement and increase greater transparency "where companies disclose their payments to government and government disclose their receipts from these resources".

Government, Koroma said, will take it as a responsibility to be publishing annually all revenues collected from the extractive sector for the benefit of the greater majority. The minister affirmed government's commitment to ensuring that concrete steps were put in place for the judicious use of the mineral wealth for the benefit of the generation yet unborn.

He revealed that they will be working with a multi-stakeholder group which includes mining companies, major dealers/exporters and government ministries, departments and agencies, and some district and chiefdom councils to ensure proper transparency and accountability.

The Fisheries and Marine Resources minister said the EITI process will go a long way in averting some of the factors that precipitated the war and ensuring good governance practices.