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Highlighting activities in EITI countries

Highlighting activities in EITI countries

This year, countries implementing the EITI must complete annual activity reports as part of the EITI Standard, adopted in 2013. This is the first time that all implementing countries have been required to communicate the efforts they have undertaken to meet and/or maintain compliance with the EITI Requirements. The annual activity reports describe progress made in achieving the objectives set out in the previous year’s workplan and document the impact of the EITI in implementing countries.

Each of the 46 implementing countries develops an EITI process that is best suited to their national needs and priorities, and the countries are encouraged to go beyond the minimum requirements of the EITI Standard. This leads to varied annual activity reports that highlight the wide range of ways that the EITI is having results in different environments. New Candidate countries, such as the United States of America, have only recently agreed the objectives for EITI implementation. Next year will be the time to take stock to see if these objectives have been met. Countries like Germany and the United Kingdom are preparing to implement the EITI and will produce annual activity reports in due course. 

Some particularly interesting cases from the 31 annual activity reports received to date are as follows (broken down by geographical region):

Africa

Burkina Faso is undertaking a study on women in the industrial mining sector and looking at ways in which companies can support women in playing a greater role in the sector (e.g. scholarships in that field).

EITI efforts in Ghana generated debate about the overall economic and social impact of mining and demands that EITI Reports go beyond revenue collection and capture for example resettlement issues. The government has developed guidelines for the utilisation of mineral royalties at the subnational level.

Mining contracts in Guinea are being published on the website "contratsminiersguinee.org". The new mining code now includes the EITI.

Liberia carried out the Post Award Process Audit, which revealed that most of the 68 contracts and licenses that were examined had not been awarded in line with applicable legislation. LEITI was also central for peer learning in the region, and hosted for example a joint study visit from Ethiopia and Tanzania.

In Nigeria, US $410 million missing education taxes have already been collected from oil and gas companies. The operations of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation are now under closer scrutiny, and it is required to justify why dividends worth US $8.8 billion were not remitted to the Federation Account. Additionally, a new calculation model for royalty payments from oil is being developed after NEITI identified a US $2 billion underassessment.

In the Republic of the Congo, theEITI contributed to the drafting of a transparency and fiscal responsibility law, which was submitted to parliament and EITI focal points were appointed within relevant structures in the public administration. The country took steps to improve the management of its national oil company by publishing figures of oil sales and revenues. These quarterly reports include a detailed reconciliation of what the state is expected to receive from the oil sector and what was effectively received by the treasury.

Sub-national payments to two counties in Togo saw an increase from the Customs Divisions from approximately US $6,000 in 2012 to approximately US $150,000 in 2013. Additionally, the multi-stakeholder group dug deeper into the EITI Report. This revealed that about 10 companies were not paying dividends to the state, two of the three water production companies were not paying taxes and one of these water companies (TdE Société Togolaise Des Eaux) was ordered by the Cours des Comptes to delete parallel accounts.

Central and South East Asia

Social investment is included in Kazakhstan’s EITI Report and each year an annual EITI Conference is held.

In The Philippines, companies are eager to use the EITI to show their contributions to the economy.

Europe

The multi-stakeholder group in Albania has recommended the inclusion of communes and municipalities in future reports and to report company payments made on the local level. To ensure the reliability of data, all reporting companies should have their figures approved by external auditors.

Transparency is already embedded in government systems in Norway. Public debate does not center around petroleum revenues and expenditures, but more on activity level and new exploration opportunities, with particular focus on safety and the environment. Data from the Norwegian EITI Reports have been made publicly available on the government's open data portal.    

Middle East

The EITI process in Afghanistan is contributing to develop the basic tools and mechanisms necessary to understand and manage Afghanistan’s budding mineral sector. This includes the development of a database for extractive companies and carrying out a nation-wide baseline survey of the extractive industries.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Guatemala’s annual activity report specifies company activities to support the EITI process.

Peru is piloting EITI implementation at the subnational level in three regions across the country. Civil society and the extractive companies operating in these regions are actively engaged. 

In Trinidad and Tobagoyouths have been recruited to join a specially formed TTEITI Youth Advisory Committee. The aim is to sensitise the nation’s youth to the fact that the EITI is about protecting their national interest and to recruit them to take the EITI message to their peers.

The above provides only a snippet of EITI implementation in different settings. Highlighting the impact of the EITI can be an inspiration for other countries as to how they can use the EITI to lead to change.