Freetown-Sierra Leone, 2022: With support from the World Bank through the Extractive Industries Technical Assistance Project, the Multi-stakeholder Group (MSG) of the Sierra Leone Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative ( SLEITI), has completed the dissemination of the 2022 Sierra Leone Validation Assessment report to stakeholders across the country.
The report was first presented to H.E. President Julius Maada Bio by the Minister of State - Office of the Vice President, and Chair, SLEITI MSG at a special ceremony at state house. The event was graced by the Vice President Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, Minsters, development partners, civil society groups, the Chamber of Mines, and the Media.
The event culminated to a nationwide dissemination of the report which ran from the 2nd to 7th December 2022. Although the MSG has a track record of disseminating EITI reports across the country, the dissemination of the 2022 validation report was the commencement of many more in future. This approach demonstrates the MSG's commitment to implementing the 2019 EITI Standard under which Sierra Leone was assessed.
The dissemination was held in Portloko District-North Western Region, Tonkolili District in the North, Kono and Kenema in the East, Bo in the South and Freetown in the Western Urban and Rural Districts. The objective of the report dissemination was to present the findings and recommendations of the Validation report to stakeholders, to showcase SLEITI's contribution to promoting prudent management of the sector, and to gauge the opinion of stakeholders about the potential of the sector.
In addition to guests at the State House event, the regional events attracted youth groups, elderly community people, land owners, district council and chiefdom authorities. These categories of audience are beneficiaries of a number of revenue streams including surface rent, Diamond area community development fund, and community Development fund from large scale companies. The SLEITI National Coordinator-Mohamed Baimba Koroma was the lead Technical facilitator. In his presentations he focused on the contribution of the MSG in the process leading up to validation, approaches adopted by the validation team, and how the scores by individual requirement contribute to the overall high score of 87.5 percent.
He said Sierra Leone validation report was impressive and its showed how far Sierra Leone has progressed since its previous validation in 2018. According to report, Sierra Leone was assessed in three major categories- Stakeholder engagements, Transparency, Outcomes and Impact. He said each contributed to the overall score of Sierra Leone. He said this has also helped shed light in areas for improvement including Beneficial ownership Transparency, license register, import and export data and among others. He said the report recommendations and corrective actions will help improve the governance of the sector if implemented.
Feedback received from stakeholders through out the dissemination exercise were centered on areas Sierra Leone was not assessed including the need to improve on areas where low grades were recorded in the Validation score card.
