Rédaction Africa Links 24 with Esther FOSSI
Published on 2024-03-05 11:49:12
The decision was announced on Friday, March 1st, 2024, after the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
Cameroon has been excluded from the EITI. The Council finally concluded that Cameroon had a relatively low score (53 points) in implementing the EITI. Factors contributing to this rating include insufficient progress in engaging civil society and constraints imposed by the government on the freedom of expression and association of civil society. As a result, Cameroon is suspended until the next validation.
After evaluating the practices of the past three years, the organization believes that Cameroon does not fully meet certain transparency and governance requirements.
Except for issues related to transparency in extractive contracts and those regarding beneficial owners, the country has made significant efforts to improve the availability of data on payments reported by companies in the extractive sector, including the national oil company, as well as on revenues received by appropriate government entities. However, the international secretariat of the EITI demands an improvement in civil society involvement.
“Weaknesses are noted in civil society engagement in the EITI and its ability to use the process to influence public decision-making. These challenges are related to the lack of accountability of the majority of civil society representatives within the multi-stakeholder group (MSG) and broader governance issues,” according to the EITI.
The Glencore case comes into play. In 2022, “concerning the payment of bribes, corruption of representatives of the National Oil Company (SNH) and the national refining company (Sonara) between 2012 and 2015 raises important concerns about the credibility of Cameroon’s transparency efforts,” as stated by the EITI.
Read the original article(French) on Journal du Cameroun
