Tanzania has made meaningful progress with considerable improvements in implementing the 2016 EITI Standard.

Outcome of the Validation of Tanzania.

Decision reference: 2020-34 / BM-47
Decision basis: EITI Articles of Association 2019-2021, Article 12.1. ix)

17 June 2020

Board decision

The Board came to the following decision regarding Tanzania's status:

The EITI Board agrees that Tanzania has fully addressed ten of the eighteen corrective actions from the country’s first Validation. Consequently, Tanzania has made meaningful progress overall in implementing the 2016 EITI Standard, with considerable improvements across several individual requirements.

The Board congratulates Tanzania for progress in improving disclosures, as well as stakeholder participation in the EITI process. Improved disclosures related to state participation in the extractive sector and financial transfers between the government and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) increase public understanding about the role of SOEs.

The Board welcomes the Government of Tanzania’s commitment to disclose oil, gas and mining contracts and to establish a register of beneficial owners. Concrete steps should be taken to implement these commitments in light of the provisions of the 2019 EITI Standard.

The Board recognises Tanzania’s efforts to strengthen institutionalisation through developing regulations for the implementation of the EITI. Tanzania has also made efforts to ensure local ownership of the EITI process and capacity-building through engaging a team of Tanzanian academics as the Independent Administrator. To further strengthen the sustainability of the EITI, Tanzania is encouraged to transition to systematic disclosures of, for example, licensing, production and export data. Progress on systematic disclosures would enable the MSG to focus on the analysis of EITI data and support the government’s objectives related to domestic revenue collection from the extractive industries.

The Board encourages Tanzania to ensure that the EITI process and the multi-stakeholder group contribute to policy-making and public debate. In this regard, the Board expresses its concerns regarding the potential impact of the 2018 Statistics Act and the 2019 NGO Act on EITI implementation. The Board thus encourages the Tanzanian Government to ensure that civil society representatives engaged in the extractive sector can continue to operate freely, analyse publicly available data and express their views on extractive sector governance without legal or practical barriers preventing. The Board is available to support Tanzania in these efforts. Civil society engagement in the EITI will be monitored by the Board and considered in Tanzania’s next Validation.

The Board has determined that Tanzania will have 18 months before a third Validation, i.e. until 17 December 2021, to carry out corrective actions regarding license allocation (Requirement 2.2), license register (Requirement 2.3), beneficial ownership (Requirement 2.5), state participation (Requirement 2.6), production data (Requirement 3.2), export data (Requirement 3.3), comprehensiveness (Requirement 4.1), subnational payments (Requirement 4.6), data quality (Requirement 4.9), quasi-fiscal expenditure (Requirement 6.2).

Corrective actions and strategic recommendations

The EITI Board agreed the following corrective actions to be undertaken by Tanzania. Progress in addressing these corrective actions will be assessed in a third Validation commencing on 17 December 2021:

In accordance with Requirement 2.2.a, Tanzania should disclose any non-trivial deviations from the legal and regulatory framework. In accordance with Requirement 2.2.c, where licenses are awarded through a bidding process, the government is required to disclose the list of applicants and the bid criteria. Tanzania is encouraged to ensure that the websites of the regulatory agencies Ministry of Mines and PURA include comprehensive information about the process for awarding and transferring oil, gas and mining licenses.
In accordance with Requirement 2.3, Tanzania should maintain a publicly available register of oil and gas licenses that includes all data points under Requirement 2.3.i-iv.
In accordance with Requirement 2.5 and the Board-agreed framework for assessing progress, Tanzania is required to disclose the beneficial owners of all companies holding or applying for extractive licenses by 31 December 2021.
In accordance with Requirement 2.6, Tanzania should ensure that the government, STAMICO and TPDC disclose more detailed information about the rules governing their financial relationship, including retained earnings and reinvestment. TPDC should disclose its level of participation in all oil and gas projects as defined in the PSAs, as well as the terms attached. Tanzania should consider whether NDC is a material SOE for EITI reporting purposes and, if so, ensure that public disclosures include comprehensive information as required under Requirement 2.6.
In accordance with Requirement 3.2, Tanzania is required to ensure that the Ministry of Minerals discloses the production volumes and values of all minerals produced, disaggregated by commodity. Tanzania should ensure that TPDC and PURA disclose the value of gas production. Tanzania is encouraged to ensure that government agencies disclose this information regularly on their websites or in their annual reports and to consider disaggregating disclosures by project.
In accordance with Requirement 3.3, Tanzania is required to ensure that the government discloses the volumes and values on mineral exports disaggregated by commodity. Tanzania is encouraged to ensure that the government discloses this data routinely, for example on the NBS website.
In accordance with Requirement 4.1, Tanzania is required to ensure that revenues and payments are comprehensively disclosed and reconciled in line with the MSG’s materiality decisions. Tanzania is encouraged to consider a higher materiality threshold for selecting companies and revenue streams in the scope of reconciliation and continue disclosing additional data through unilateral government disclosures.
In accordance with Requirement 4.6, Tanzania should ensure that all material revenues collected by subnational government entities from extractive companies are reconciled and disclosed disaggregated by revenue stream, company and local authority. The MSG is encouraged to set a materiality threshold for subnational payments to ensure that reconciliation is cost efficient while comprehensively capturing all local authorities collecting material revenues from extractive companies.
In accordance with Requirement 4.9 and the Terms of Reference of Independent Administrators, Tanzania should ensure that EITI Reports clearly document whether all reporting entities had their financial statements audited and complied with agreed quality assurances for their EITI reporting. Possible omissions should be clearly documented. The Independent Administrator should provide a clear statement on the reliability and comprehensiveness of reconciled financial data.
In accordance with Requirement 6.2, Tanzania should ensure that the MSG agrees a definition of quasi-fiscal expenditures in accordance with the IMF’s definition and discuss this with TPDC, STAMICO and the Ministry of Finance to ensure that there is common understanding of the nature of these expenses and that possible quasi-fiscal expenditures are comprehensively covered in disclosures by the SOEs, the government or TEITI.

Background

Tanzania joined the EITI in 2009 and became compliant with the EITI Rules in 2012. Tanzania’s first Validation under the EITI Standard concluded on 25 October 2017. The EITI Board found that Tanzania had made ‘meaningful progress’ in implementing the EITI Standard. Eighteen corrective actions were identified by the Board, to be assessed in a second Validation commencing on 25 April 2019.

Tanzania’s second Validation commenced on 1 January 2020 following an extension request approved by the Board in October 2019. The EITI International Secretariat has assessed the progress made in addressing the 18 corrective actions established by the EITI Board following Tanzania’s first Validation in 2017.

Tanzania has undertaken a number of activities to address the corrective actions:

Published the 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 EITI Reports.
The Controller and Auditor General has investigated discrepancies identified in the 2015/2016 EITI Report.
Minister of Mines Doto Biteko reiterated the government’s commitment to the EITI and contract transparency at the EITI Global Conference in June 2019.
Constituencies nominated new members for the MSG.
TEITI launched a new website and a data dashboard.

The Secretariat assessed the progress made in addressing the 18 corrective actions established by the EITI Board, as well as progress in implementing Requirement 2.5 on beneficial ownership.. The EITI International Secretariat’s assessment is that Tanzania has fully addressed ten of the 18 corrective actions, progress in implementing Requirement 4.9 on data quality has fallen below “satisfactory progress”, and Tanzania has made meaningful progress in implementing Requirement 2.5 on beneficial ownership.

The draft assessment was sent to the multi-stakeholder group (MSG) on 3 April 2020. Following comments from the MSG received on 24 April 2020, the assessment was finalised for consideration by the EITI Board.

Assessment of EITI requirements

Not met
Partly met
Mostly met
Fully met
Exceeded

Scorecard by requirement View more	Assessment View more
Overall Progress
MSG oversight
1.1Government engagement
Minister of Minerals Doto Biteko has demonstrated active engagement in the EITIand appointed anew MSG Chair, Mr Ludovick Utouh, aformer Auditor General. Implementation has been somewhat slowed down by the lack of clarity on the process for recruiting an Executive Secretary and the lack of funding for the EITI process. Nonetheless, an acting Executive Secretary has provided interim leadership for the secretariat since May 2018.
1.2Company engagement
The passage of the Tanzania Extractive Industries (Transparency and Accountability) Act in 2015 was an important milestone. However, since then, poor attendance by government representatives at multi-stakeholder (MSG) meetings, inability to appoint an MSG chair, the absence of an EITI Champion, and apparent lack of political support at the highest level—all corroborated by strong stakeholder views in the same direction—suggest weak government engagement in the EITI process.
1.3Civil society engagement
The second Validation documented stakeholder concerns related to shrinking civic space. However, there was no indication that this had affected civil society engagement in the EITI, which remains full, active and effective.
1.4MSG governance
The MSG and each constituency have made efforts to ensure an open and transparent process for nominating MSG members. There is evidence that the MSGs oversight of the EITI process has improved with the direction from the new EITI Chair and support from the national secretariat. The MSG is performing its required functions in practice, but its contribution to policymaking is limited.
1.5Work plan
The MSG has agreed and published a five-year work plan and operational work plans for implementation of the EITI. The work plans include objectives and activities that reflect national priorities for the sector and focus on improving regular and timely disclosures of information.
Licenses and contracts
2.2License allocations
Technical and financial criteria for awarding and transferring mining licenses has been disclosed, as well as the recipients of mining licenses awarded and transferred in the period under review. Remaining gaps relate to clarifying whether licenses were awarded through a bidding process and whether there were non-trivial deviations from the legal framework.
2.3License register
The publicly available mining cadastre now includes license coordinates, but required information on licenses is not available for the oil and gas sector.
2.4Policy on contract disclosure
The policy and practice for contract transparency are clearly described in the 2016/2017 EITI Report.
2.1Legal framework
The legal framework and fiscal regime of extractive industries and the responsibilities of relevant government agencies are disclosed. Ongoing and proposed reforms are also described.
2.5Beneficial ownership
TEITI has agreed appropriate definitions for the terms “beneficial owner” and “politically exposed person” and requested data from extractive companies making material payments.The MSG also agreed assurances that reporting companies were requested to provide.A study commissioned by TEITI in 2017 provides recommendations towards systematic disclosures of beneficial ownership information. However, follow-up on the study by relevant government agencies has been weak. The 2015 TEITA Act and its implementing regulations issued in 2019 provide a legal basis for disclosures. In 2016, the government committed to establishing a public register of beneficial owners in 2020, but progress has been limited to date. Information on legal owners of extractive companies is held by the government but is not publicly available.
2.6State participation
Disclosures haveimproved regarding the financial relationship between the state and SOEs in the period under review. However, comprehensive information about the underlying rules governing the relationship is lacking.
Monitoring production
3.1Exploration data
The EITI Report contains an overview of the extractive sector, including exploration activities.
3.2Production data
There is nopublicly available data on production values for the period under reviewand data on production volumes appears to be incomprehensive.
3.3Export data
The publicly available information on mineral exports is more limited than during the first Validation. No export volumes were disclosed and data on export values is incomprehensive.
Revenue collection
4.3Barter agreements	Not applicable
EITI Requirement 4.3 on barter and infrastructure transactions is not applicable to Tanzania.
4.6Direct subnational payments
Direct subnational payments have been partly covered in EITI reporting, but disclosures do not provide a comprehensive, reliableand disaggregated overview of revenues collected by subnational government entities.
4.7Disaggregation
EITI data is disaggregated by company and revenue stream, with the exception of direct subnational payments to local authorities which are not disaggregated by receiving government entity.
4.9Data quality
Financial data in the2016/2017EITI Report is based on audited financial statements. However, the documentation of compliance with requested assurances and theIA’s assessment ofcomprehensiveness and reliability are lacking.
4.1Comprehensiveness
The low materiality threshold resulted in an excessively broadscope for the 2016/2017 reconciliation exercise. As a result, the comprehensiveness of the reconciliation did not reach the target set by the MSG and unresolved discrepancies raise concerns about data reliability.
4.2In-kind revenues	Not applicable
EITI Requirement 4.2 on in-kind revenues is not applicable in Tanzania.
4.4Transportation revenues
The 2016/2017 EITI Report comprehensively discloses revenues collected by TPDC from the transportation of gas. These revenues and payments are reconciled. Transportation revenues only apply to natural gas. The volume of gas transported has not been explicitly disclosed but production volumes are disclosed by company, and all gas is consumed domestically and transported through TPDC’s pipelines. The process for determining the rate is publicly available.
4.5SOE transactions
Transfers between extractive SOEs and the government, as well as the SOEs and other extractive companies, appear to have been comprehensively disclosed. Due to its limited role in the extractive sector, NDC is not considered as a material SOE for the purposes of EITI reporting.
4.8Data timeliness
The record across six EITI Reports shows efforts to ensure that EITI reporting is timely, with a delay only in the 2012/13 EITI Report.
Revenue allocation
5.1Distribution of revenues
Tanzania has credibly demonstrated that all extractive revenues enter either the state budget or local government budgets. While the 2016/2017 EITI Report does not explicitly state that the Ministry of Minerals did notretain any revenues they collected in FY 2016/2017, the Secretariat’s assessment is that the description provided in the EITI Report and annual progress report and the existing legal and auditing assurances provide a sufficient overview of the distribution of extractive revenues..
5.2Subnational transfers	Not applicable
Sub-national transfers do not appear to be part of the extractive sector revenue system in Tanzania. Rqeuirement 5.2 on sub-national transfers is therefore not applicable to Tanzania.
5.3Revenue management and expenditures	Not assessed
Apart from a general description of the budget and audit process, the EITI report does not contain information on the management of extractive sector revenue and related expenditures. Reporting on revenue management and expenditures is encouraged but not required by the EITI Standard and progress with this requirement will not have any implications for a country’s EITI status.
Socio-economic contribution
6.1Mandatory social expenditures	Not applicable
There are no mandatory social payments from the extractive sector in Tanzania. Requirement 6.1.a is therefore not applicable. The EITI Report disclosures voluntary social payments by extractive sector companies (or cash equivalent). Information on the beneficiaries of these social payments are not included.
6.2Quasi-fiscal expenditures
As the MSG has not agreed and communicated to the SOEs a clear definition of quasi-fiscal expenditures (QFEs), the Secretariat is not able to confirm that extractive SOEs are not, for example, providing subsidies or undertaking infrastructure investments that could be considered as QFEs.
6.3Economic contribution
The 2016/2017 EITI Report and other publicly available sources such as the regular disclosures by the National Bureau of Statistics and the Bank of Tanzania provide all required data points. Efforts to address artisanal and small-scale mining are commendable.
Outcomes and impact
7.2Data accessibility	Not assessed
EITI Reports are not yet machine readable, although key information is available online. Capacity-building activities have focused on enhancing the capacity of the secretariat staff and less that of civil society, citizens, media and others. Requirement 7.2 on data accessibility is encouraged but not required by the EITI Standard and progress with this requirement will not have any implications for a country’s EITI status.
7.4Outcomes and impact of implementation
The Annual Progress Report 2015 was published within the deadline, and the report reflects Tanzania EITI’s main activities and progress made during 2015.
7.1Public debate
The MSG has made efforts to ensure that government and company disclosures are comprehensible, actively promoted, publicly accessible and contribute to public debate.
7.3Follow up on recommendations
The MSG has considered measures to follow up on findings and recommendations from EITI Reports, monitored implementation of proposed actions and documented the decisions and actions taken.