Freetown, Sierra Leone-June 19, 2019- The EITI Board on Monday 17th June 2019 agreed that Sierra Leone has made "Meaningful Progress in EITI implementation". It implies that significant aspects of the EITI requirement have so far been implemented while its broader objective is being fulfilled.
The EITI Board made this decision following a validation exercise which commenced on 4th September 2018 in line with requirement 8.3.c, of the 2016 Standard.
In arriving at the decision, the EITI Board took note of the Government of Sierra Leone's commitment in implementing the EITI and effort made to "embed EITI provisions in national legislation".
It could be recalled that H.E. President Julius Maada Bio at the Beneficial Ownership Conference in Dakar, Senegal, committed to establish a beneficial ownership disclosure register of companies by 2020. While significant work has been done in this direction, the President also anchored the supervision of the EITI process in the Office of the Vice President.
The Validation was conducted under the leadership of Vice President Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, serving as Sierra Leone EITI Champion and the Minister of State Francess Piagie Alghali, serving as the Sierra Leone Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative ( SLEITI) multi-stakeholder group ( MSG) Chair.
The EITI Board further stated that the Government of Sierra Leone has "improved the availability of information and through EITI reporting, it has also strengthened dialogue between stakeholders".
The EITI Board further agreed that there was "potential for the EITI to contribute to annual assessment of the management of licenses activities, clarifying the basis for official mineral production and export figures, and supporting an evidence-based public debate on artisanal and small -scale mining".
As provided for in requirement 8.3.c, Sierra Leone was encouraged to undertake several corrective actions to further improve on its EITI compliance before the commencement of its second validation on 17th December 2020.
This is the first validation Sierra Leone has undertaken under the 2016 Standard. Validation is an essential pillar which seeks to assess a country's performance in complying with each of the EITI requirement in addition to safeguarding the integrity of the EITI by holding all implementing countries to the same global standard.