Le Conseil d'Administration a convenu que la Côte d'Ivoire a réalisé des progrès significatifs dans la mise en oeuvre de la Norme ITIE 2016.

The government has reiterated its commitment to the EITI on multiple occasions and two senior government officials have been appointed to lead EITI implementation, albeit only the chair leads day-to-day implementation. Government officials participate actively in EITI reporting and MSG deliberations, but evidence of use of EITI data by the government to promote public debate or monitor government revenues remains limited.

Senior industry representatives, participate actively in MSG meetings, although the representation of the mining industry sub-constituency can be improved. In addition to MSG meetings, companies participate in EITI reporting, in dissemination and outreach activities and in resolving conflicts. Oil companies’ representatives have provided their expertise to help explain the functioning of the production sharing agreements, while the contracts remain confidential. Mining companies also proactively disclose material payments as the sector continue to expend rapidly.

Civil society representatives are fully, actively and effectively engaged in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the EITI process. They help lead day-to-day implementation through the appointment of a civil society representative as technical director of the EITI national secretariat. They also conduct studies, take the lead on outreach to local communities and dissemination campaign of EITI Reports. Having successfully campaigned for EITI implementation, civil society representatives work diligently to protect and use the space created by the EITI process to influence government policy. While the fragmented nature of the civil society constituency may have diminished their effectiveness, there are also ample evidence that civil society can influence government policy in the drafting of the new mining code.

The MSG does not include appropriate representation of each constituency, and the process by which each stakeholder group nominated their representatives remains unclear. Most government representatives are no longer serving in the position for which they were nominated on the MSG, yet they continue to seat on the MSG and to receive perdiems. The MSG’s Internal Rules are publicly available but do not appear to be followed in practice. Moreover, the MSG’s per diem policy remains ad-hoc and opaque, which led to resentment between EITI focal points, who do all the work of EITI reporting but are not paid perdiems and MSG members who receive perdiem even after they leave the organisations that they represented on the MSG.

EITI Cote d’Ivoire work plans include objectives that reflect national priorities, such as the extension of the scope of EITI reporting to artisanal mining. Work plan activities are measurable, but not always time-bound, and not fully costed. The work plans also include activities aimed at addressing capacity constraints and activities aimed at implementing the new beneficial ownership roadmap and the government open policy.

Two implementing decrees provide technical and financial criteria for the oil, gas and mining sectors. The 2015 EITI Report did not comprehensively disclose the license allocation process for 90 licenses awarded in the mining sector in 2015, although this information is now available in the country's online mining cadastre. The technical and financial criteria used in license transfer that occured in the oil and gas sector and the production sharing agreement, signed with ANADARKO in September 2015, were not published.

The RCI did not have a publicly available register or cadastre system for its oil, gas and mining industry, but the 2015 EITI Report includes comprehensive information on mining licenses in accordance with EITI Requirement 2.3.a, including names of license holders, location, size and coordinate for each mining license, dates of application award and expiration, allowing the reader to determine the validity period. It should be noted that the Report provided also detailed information on licenses held by artisanal miners of diamond and coltan and semi-industrial production of gold. However, the Report did not disclose comprehensive information of all licenses in the oil and gas sector.

The EITI Report provides a clear description of the government policy, which is not applied in practice. Despite a clear legal mandate to publish production sharing agreements in the hydrocarbon sector since 2012, the law has not been implemented in practice. Government officials at the Ministry of Hydrocarbon and Energy have argued against the publication of the production sharing agreements in a clear violation of article 12 of law N° 2012-369 of 18 April 2012.

EITI Cote d’Ivoire work plans include objectives that reflect national priorities, such as the extension of the scope of EITI reporting to artisanal mining. Work plan activities are measurable, but not always time-bound, and not fully costed. The work plans also include activities aimed at addressing capacity constraints and activities aimed at implementing the new beneficial ownership roadmap and the government open policy.

The international Secretariat took note of the study published by the MSG in December 2016, which reviews the legal and regulatory framework and sets out a methodology for agreeing a definition of beneficial ownership, the mechanism of collecting and publishing beneficial ownership data as well as the level of details to be disclosed. However, the International Secretariat notes that many stakeholders were not aware of this study and implementation of the beneficial ownership roadmap has been delayed. Moreover, very few oil and gas companies disclosed their legal owners as part of the 2015 EITI Report.

While the 2015 EITI Report clearly describes the prevailing rules and practices regarding the financial relationship between the government and SODEMI, the descriptions of the financial relationship between the state and the national oil company (PETROCI) remains unclear and not fully comprehensive. The rules and practices governing transfers of funds between PETROCI and the state retained earnings, reinvestment and third-party financing cannot be fully assessed without PETROCI’s financial statement, which is not published.

The 2015 EITI Report provides an overview of extractive industries, including significant exploration activities and ongoing project developments. The International Secretariat takes note that the Report also includes an overview of the artisanal mining sector of diamond and gold, including ongoing reforms to formalise the ASM sector.

The 2015 EITI Report includes volume and value of production by commodity. The information is disaggregated by producers for the hydrocarbon sector, and by region for the artisanal mining of diamond. Information on production and export was reconciled with the producers in the case of oil and gas and clearly sourced to the DGMG, which monitor production in the mining sector.

The 2015 EITI Report discloses total export volumes and the value of exports by commodity, and in some cases this information has been reconciled and disaggregated by exporter. Export data is clearly sourced, but the Report does not include information on how export data has been calculated.

"Despite the IA and MSG conclusion that barter arrangements were not material in 2015, the 2015 EITI Report appears to describe two barter arrangements (Swaps of crude oil for natural gas and swap of natural gas for electricity) but does not provide sufficient detail on the terms of the contracts and parties involved. The 2015 EITI report was not sufficiently clear on the terms of the SWAPS agreements of crude oil for natural gas, which requires the valorisation of both products at market price to make the swap and the parties involved in the long terms of the long-term natural gas purchasing agreements for electricity supply."

Together with the IA, the MSG has considered definition of materiality with regards to direct subnational payments and concluded that such payments are not material due to the principle of unity of account, which mandate that all budgetary revenues are collected by the central government, registered in the Public Treasury account. Municipal taxes collected at the central level and then transferred to local communities are covered under Requirement 5.2, subnational transfers, below.

The financial data disclosed in the 2015 EITI Report is disaggregated by individual company, government entity and revenue stream. In-kind revenues, which represent the largest revenue stream to the government via PETROCI are also disaggregated by producing license. Following recommendations from the IA, the MSG has included a feasibility study of project level reporting in its 2017 work plan.

The IA undertook a review of the audit and assurance procedures in Cote d’Ivoire and recommended quality assurance procedures that were largely followed by reporting entities. Oil, gas and mining companies had their financial statements audited for data covered by the The IA undertook a review of the audit and assurance procedures in Cote d’Ivoire and recommended quality assurance procedures that were largely followed by reporting entities. Oil, gas and mining companies had their financial statements audited for data covered by the 2015 EITI report, and largely adhered to the agreed quality assurance procedures, except Newcrest Hire, Perseus Mining CI, and Amara Mining CI, which collectively paid 0.43% of total revenues. Newcrest Hire and Perseus Mining CI submitted certified data after the deadline for reconciliation. On the government side, IGE conducted an audit of all companies submitting data and certified all the state declarations except for DGH, which declared 6% of total revenues. The IA assessed the impact of these gaps on the quality of the report and concluded that despite these omissions data presented in the 2015 EITI Report reflect reasonably the extractive sector’s contribution to the state budget (2015 EITI Report, p.16).

The 2015 EITI Report lists and describes all material companies and revenue streams. The materiality of revenues from non-reporting companies is assessed. While two mining companies making material payments (NEWCREST HIRECote d'Ivoire SA and Ampella Mining) were first omitted from the list of reporting companies, they were subsequently included in the reconciliation process and all but three oil, gas companies (Lukoil, CIPEM and PAN Atlantic) that made material payments in 2015 fully reported all payments in accordance with the agreed reporting templates. Payments made by the three non-reporting companies were relatively insignificant, less than 0.2% of total reported revenues from the extractive sector, therefore did not affect the comprehensiveness of the Report. Full government disclosure is provided for companies below the materiality threshold.

The 2015 EITI Report reconciles the volumes collected by PETROCI on behalf of the government with company payments of in-kind revenues and discloses volumes of the state’s in-kind revenues sold by PETROCI as well as the transfer of sales proceeds to the Treasury. The volumes of oil and gas received by PETRCI were disaggregated by oil bloc, but the quantities of oil sold and revenues received were not disaggregated by buyer, except in the case of the domestic national refinery (SIR) and delivery of natural gas to Cote d’Ivoire Energy.

The IA and MSG concluded assessed the materiality of transport revenues and concluded that these payments were not material. The 2015 EITI Report and stakeholders’ consultation confirms that transport revenues were immaterial in the oil, gas and mining sector for the year covered by the Report.

The 2015 EITI Report discloses SODEMI’s transactions with the government and shows that SODEMI did not collect revenues from oil and gas companies. However, despite significant disclosures by PETROCI of its transactions with the state, several transactions involving PETROCI and Cote d’Ivoire Energy remains unreported and unclear to many MSG members.

The MSG has made significant improvements in the timeliness of EITI reporting and regularly published timely EITI Reports in accordance with the EITI Requirement.

While the report provides a diagram mapping out revenues flows between companies and government entities, and lists revenues that are not systematically recorded in the national budget, significant revenues (33.72% of the revenues that go through PETROCI and 6% of revenues collected by DGH) are not systematically recorded in the national budget. The Report did not explain the allocation of these revenues that were not recorded in the national budget. The Report only provides a link to the financial reports in the case of SODEMI, not for PETROCI and DGH that received revenues not recorded in the national budget.

The 2015 EITI Report describes statutory subnational transfers of revenues to municipalities but does not provide the amount paid in practice. The International Secretariat concludes that the statutory subnational transfers were material in 2015, but not reported by the treasury.

EITI Cote d’Ivoire has made some effort to include information on the government’s budget-making process in the EITI Report. However, the MSG did not make efforts to include additional information on extractives revenues that are off-budget and earmarked to specific regions (CDLM) and specific government agencies (DGH).

The MSG agreed a definition of what constitutes mandatory and voluntary social payments and set a materiality threshold at zero for these types of payments. The 2015 EITI Report shows detailed information on mandatory and voluntary social payments made by each company (p.93). The Report also provides detailed payment of mandatory and voluntary social payments by company and by beneficiary (pp.109-110).

Revenues received in-kind by DGH and allocated to training activities or for the purchase of equipments and not recorded in the national budget should have been reported as quasi-fiscal expenditures. Similarly, in-kind revenues of natural gas used to offset electricity bills and not recorded on the national budget the same year, should have been reported as quasi-fiscal expenditures. The budget of the PETROCI foundation, which also makes quasi-fiscal expenditures was not published.

The 2015 EITI Report shows that according to INS data, the extractive industries contributed 5.15% of GDP, 5.14% in government revenues and accounted for 10.81% of total exports from the country in 2015. Gold accounted for 6.16% of total export, while crude oil accounted for 4.44% of total exports. Mining companies employed 5,291 in 2015, whereas, oil and gas companies employed only 934.

EITI data for 2014 and 2015 is available in machine readable format through the EITI Cote d’Ivoire website. Such efforts are encouraged but not required and are not assessed in determining compliance with the EITI Standard.

The 2016 APR is well structured and highlights that the implementation of the EITI is fostering dialogue on governance and transparency between stakeholders. All the recommendations from conciliation and validation reports are listed. The responsible entity, deadlines and corresponding MSG response are also indicated. However, the 2016 APR provides too little detail on dissemination activities and their impact.

EITI Cote d’Ivoire has ensured that the EITI Reports are accessible to the public and contribute to public debate and conflict resolutions in some extractives regions. Dissemination activities involving civil society groups appear to have been effective in stimulating an informed debate about the management of the extractive sector. Industry representatives appear eager to use EITI data to improve community relations. The MSG has played a key role in developing more formalised consultation mechanisms with mining-affected communities, through village elders and traditional chiefs.

The MSG has been thorough in taking steps to act upon lessons learned and monitoring progress with the implementation of recommendations in EITI Reports, but the RCI has made limited progress in implementing substantive recommendations made in EITI Reports. Together with the IA, significant efforts have been made to identify, investigate and address the causes of discrepancies in EITI reporting.