Monrovia — The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) has commended the Government of Liberia for passing the EITI 2019 Standard.
The EITI is the global standard to promote the open and accountable management of oil, gas and mineral resources. The EITI Standard requires the disclosure of information along the extractive industry value chain from the point of extraction, to how revenues make their way through the government, and how they benefit the public.
The validation provides an opportunity to access performance and good practice in the extractive sector and to identify opportunities to strengthen the impact of the EITI across all of the 56 countries.
In a communication to President George Weah, the EITI Board Chair, the Rt Hon. Helen Clark said the Board agreed on June 17, 2022 that Liberia has achieved a moderate overall score of 75 points in implementing the 2019 EITI Standard.
"This result reflects the high-level commitment and dedication of your government, key office holders, staff, and multi-stakeholders group members to harness the EITI as a platform to advance reforms, inform public debate, and improve access to information on the mining, oil and gas, forestry and agriculture sector," Ms. Clark lauds the government in the communication.
She continued: "The EITI commends your government for achieving a high score of 81.1 on outcomes and impact. A moderate score of 75 points was achieved on stakeholder's engagement, but a fairly low score of 69.5 on transparency.
The report is a big boost to Liberia, one of the first countries to implement the EITI, under former president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, but was suspended from the initiative in September 2018 due to reporting delays and the lack of a multi-stakeholder group to oversee the process.
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Since the suspension was lifted in 2020 following Liberia's compliance, the country has been making significant progress in promoting governance in the extractive sector.
This was reflected in the EITI Board Chair's letter to President Weah.
"It was clear from the validation that steps have been taken to rebuild the EITI process, following resolution of governance issue within the national Secretariat in 2018/2019 and that effort to use the EITI as a platform to bring about reform and debate in the extractive sector have subsequently been resumed."
Clark, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, noted that there are opportunities to build further on these efforts by improving transparency around the award of extractive rights, the beneficial owners of companies, contract, and the operation of the National Oil Company, while ensuring that EITI objectives are aligned with national priorities for the extractive industries.
She added that the Board has determined that Liberia will have until the next validation commencing on April 1, 2024 to carry out 14 corrective actions and to consider the strategic recommendations from this validations. She also pledged
The international EITI Secretariat stands ready to support you and the Multi-Stakeholders Group in your effort to take forward implementation of the EITI Standard. We hope that the recommendations stemming from the validation are helpful in directing these efforts.
