Sierra Leone Telegraph: 14 November 2022:
Last Thursday, 10th of November 2022, President Julius Maada Bio received Sierra Leone’s Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) validation report, scoring the county 87.5. Commenting, President Bio said: “I want to start by congratulating the EITI validation team members for their great diligence in seeing through this successful validation. You have made this country proud.
“To the Honourable Vice President, your direct oversight of the process has been invaluable. I urge my Ministers to emulate such sterling leadership so our nation will continue meeting and exceeding other critical international benchmarks and commitments,” he said.
President Bio, however, urged his government to continue to improve on the areas where it is yet to make rapid progress, adding that he believes that the country could improve contract transparency, systematic disclosure of production and export data, beneficial ownership, and license allocation processes.
“These additional reforms will improve overall transparency and accountability in the sector. We believe that there should be full disclosure along the entire extractive industries value chain – from how extraction rights are awarded, and how revenues make their way through government, to how revenues benefit the public.
“My Government also welcomes that the EITI is an inclusive multi-stakeholder platform that also involves Government, Companies, and Civil Society to collectively discuss and map out issues of transparency and accountability in order to promote good governance in the Extractive Sector. I am pleased that this is working well in Sierra Leone and this has been acknowledged by international assessors,” he added.
President Bio assured that Sierra Leone will continue to be a committed member of the EITI and remain so, because his government has made transparency and accountability a hallmark of governance.
“Little wonder then that the Millennium Challenge Corporation of the United States, for the fourth year in a row graded us among the top-performing nations in Africa for the hard control-of-corruption indicator,” he said.
Minister of State in the Office of the Vice President and Chair of the SLEITI Multi-Stakeholder Group, Francess Piagie Alghali, said Sierra Leone commenced its first validation under the new EITI standards and the validation model which started in April 2021 to assess its compliance with each of the requirements in the EITI standards.
She noted that the validation is the global standard for transparency and accountability in the oil, gas, and mining sectors, adding that under the leadership of President Julius Maada Bio they have progressively improved compliance.
“In our last validation cycle, Sierra Leone was considered to have made meaningful progress overall in implementing the EITI standard,” she disclosed.
The Validation process also seeks to capture the views of a wide range of stakeholders and rewards countries on the effectiveness and sustainability of EITI implementation.
Transparency is to be open and frank .It ensures the public has access to the information which they use to measure the performance of goverment and public bodies to guard against the possible misuse of power .”Is an ethic that spans science ,engineering, business and the activities of humanity in general .Transparency is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed” On the other hand accountability is when you are called to account for your actions, and in so doing you are open and frank about it .And you can account for your actions or the lack of in a timeless clarity . Bio might have welcomed this EITI report with such fanfare and has the brass neck to say is one of the most in-depth and transparent and accountable report presented to him. Majority of Sierra Leoenans will be shaking their heads and reaching for the bucket to throw up .What a load of hogwash .
The Sierra Leone extrative industries transparency initiative validation report , might have given his goverment 87:5% approval rating in terms of transparency and accountability and fighting corruption . The devil is in the details .Because when it comes to the mining sector , and despite the large amount of mineral resources deposit our country is blessed with , communities that live in those areas are the most disadvantage in terms of education , health , housing , bad roads , lack of electricity and well-being. Corruption in the mining sector is not only the main impediment to our country’s national aspiration development goals , but the source of all our problems our country have encountered in the last few decades .So this report is not only a whitewash, but it is a clear manifestation the Bio government doesn’t care about Transperency and Accountability.Otherwise he should have shown the same zeal and enthusiasm to the anuanul audit report produced by the former Auditor General Mrs. Lara Perarce -Taylor . Back in 2020 he didn’t like what he read because it was critical of his goverment in their so-called fight against corruption .We all know what happened next .
That is why we need to shine a torch on the rank hypocrisy of Bio and his government about the way he received this report and he made sure the Cameras are there to capture the moment because there is nothing in that report that says his government is colluding with foreign mining multinational corporations and nothing to show in the way of benefits for the ordinary people of Kono , Lunsar Marapa mines and the Southern part of the country where majority of these minerals are to be found. Bio prefer to be in the good books of our international partners and is answerable to them than the people that voted for him in the first place .