SLEITI MSG Holds Sensitization on 2022 Report
By Mariama Jenneh Pessima
The Sierra Leone Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative and the Multi-Stakeholders Group on Wednesday 7th December 2022 held its stakeholder engagement to popularize the Sierra Leone 2022 Validation Report. The report was initially and formally presented to President Julius Maada Bio at State House and the event was graced by the Vice President Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, cabinet ministers and heads of Agencies managing the extractive sector.
The event took place at 85 Upper Wellington Street in Freetown.
Giving the keynote address the Permanent Secretary Minister of Mines and Mineral Resources, Mr. Keine Lamin said the presentation of the 2022 report gave a vivid background of where we are coming from as a country and what we have achieved.
The Permanent Secretary said Sierra Leone and Sierra Leoneans are proud because of the score in the latest EITI report of with Sierra Leone scoring 87.5 in the implementation of the 2019 EITI Standard.
He said the overall score reflect on three components including stakeholder engagement, transparency and outcome impact.
‘This is a great achievement and we thank the secretariat and the MSG for the work put into the 2019 implementation. The cooperation from other agencies including chiefdom administration, the Mineral Agency and more was great,’ he said.
Mr. Lamin noted that all of these efforts were done to enhance the EITI implementation process, while noting that it was a long journey but more needs to done.
The Chairman of the occasion, Amadu Mansaray in his opening statement said the Sierra Leone fully met requirement 4.9 with the secretariat making sure that reliable EITI financial data were provided.
He said the data collected was subjected to credible, independent audit and applying international audit standard.
‘In 2009 the EITI report builds on the flexible approach to reporting and that the MSG provided additional information on the governments auditing standards. The government financial statements were audited by the audit service of Sierra Leone as it is a member of the international organization of supreme audit institution (INTOSAI) and African organization of supreme audit institutions (AFROSAI) and applies the international standards of supreme Audit institutions (ISSAI) issued by (INTOSAI) in its auditing work.
‘The MSG confirms that the Auditor General audited the accounts of all Government Agencies for 2019 before the EITI reporting process commence. In light of this information, the Secretariat considers that the requirement has been fully met, Mr. Mansaray.
The civil Society Representative Mrs. Gertrude Karimu making her statement said Sierra Leone is celebrating today because the scores we made on the EITI report was impressive.
She said CSO's are very important in this aspect especially in the area of monitoring.
We monitor activities of government and the sector. We continue to play an important role, from the assessment and on to the validation. Today we as CSO are proud of ourselves because of the important role we played towards the implementation leading to the outcome.
Making his presentation the National Coordinator, Mohamed Mbaimba Koroma said the draft validation present findings of the international secretariat’s validation of Sierra Leone, which commenced 1st April 2022.
Mr. Koroma noted that the validation assess progress in EITI implementation since the previous validation under the 2016 EITI Standard.
He said the assessment of disclosure focusses on financial year 2019, which is the period covered by the latest EITI Report.
‘The assessment follows the 2019 EITI Standard and that the draft report was finalized for review by the multi-stakeholder’s group on 10th August 2022. Implementation has revitalized since the previous validation in 2018 under strong government leadership and a refresh of MSG membership led to more inclusive representation, particularly in terms of thematic and gender diversity, from government agencies and civil society.
Mr. Koroma noted that all aspect of the requirement including expected were implemented and a broader objective of the requirement has been fulfilled through systematic disclosure in government and company and this exceeded which is 100 percent.
‘The broader objective of the requirement has been fulfilled and all required aspect of the requirement is mostly fulfilled. Significant aspect of the requirement have been implemented and the broader objective of the requirement is mostly fulfilled,’ he said.
On the flip side partly met which is 30 percent significant aspect of the requirement have not been met implemented and the broader objective of the requirement is not fulfilled.
The indicator considers the extent to which the EITI implementation in Sierra Leone addresses nationally relevant sector challenges and risks. The EITI is informing debate about subnational contribution of the extractive sector which is highly relevant in Sierra Leone extractive sector challenges and risk.
