EITI CAPACITY-BUILDING WORKSHOP FOR CIVIL SOCIETY REPRESENTATIVES

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is a voluntary initiative, supported by a coalition of companies, governments, investors and civil society organizations seeking to improve transparency in government budget practice and in the utilization of payments and revenues generated by extractive industries. The EITI begins a process whereby citizens can hold their governments to account for the use of those revenues. A series of consultations have been ongoing to update stakeholders on progress since the inception of the initiative. On the global level, the international campaign "Publish What You Pay" (PWYP), with the support of other partners, has organized two workshops: a capacity-building workshop for representatives of civil society organizations (CSOs) from central and western Africa and a meeting to review the regional PWYP strategy. The presentations and documents from the meetings, which also serve as annexes to this report, can be downloaded from www.publishwhatyoupay.org/kribi.zip

Some presentations delivered at the Ghana EITI Workshop in Kumasi

The Role of Civil Society in Ensuring Transparency in the Extractive Sector (Steve Manteaw, ISODEC)

Concepts, Principles and Benefits of EITI (Amponsah Tawiah, Minerals Commission)

Civil Society Consultative meeting on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)
19th November 2004

The Ministry of Mines and other stakeholders in the mining industry have taken up the challenge of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Ghana with the objective of working to towards increasing transparency in the utilization of payments and revenues generated by the extractive industries in Ghana.

A series of meetings aimed at consolidating the views of stakeholders and civil society to develop and adopt a national framework and template for reporting by mining companies, and the government have been going on since May 2003. But the participation of civil society in these meetings has been limited. This meeting convened by ISODEC is therefore aimed at broadening civil society involvement and enhanced input into the EITI and also provided an agreed framework for civil society engagement.

Mr. Emmanuel Kuyole of ISODEC - Civil Society representative on the EITI national steering committee, stated that civil society has been concerned about the lack of transparency in the extractive sector. The EITI initiative was therefore very welcome even though the scope and content of the initiative was very limited. By accepting to join the steering committee after series of meetings and discussions have been held ISODEC was hoping to use the opportunity to raise the concerns and position of civil society and ensure that the process was inclusive and participatory.

Key concerns
The Agricultural, Mining and other extractive sectors have been the main source of revenue, employment and trade in Ghana. Since the 1990s these sectors had experienced a boom yet in spite of this growth, quality of life of the communities involved and the citizens in general had deteriorated. In some cases these resources had become the source of conflicts, a means of suppressing the basic freedoms of communities as experienced in many West African countries. One begins to wonder whether it is a crime to have such wealth or a blessing.

Street Children
Young people were increasing in greater numbers on the streets, most of them streaming from some of these communities because of lack of livelihood.

Development and Accountability
A World Bank study had indicated that 12 mineral dependent countries and 6 oil dependent counties in Africa were HIPC and had the worst human development indicators. Each of these countries had a domestic governance problem. Revenue accrued from the extractive sector had been largely mismanaged, corruption was very high and there was no equity in the distribution of the wealth. In Ghana, however, there was a lot more reliance on donor support for the extractive sector. In Nigeria for example though a lot of wealth was internally generated through the extraction of oil, a few Nigerians had enriched themselves while the citizens suffered.

Regulatory Problems
It has been almost impossible to monitor and regulate activities of mining companies and the percentage of monies received by government from these companies, and how much of it went into the development of the communities. It was rather sad that although Ghana's laws were being reviewed to attract investors to the sector yet very little was being done by these companies to justify the need for more concessions. There are cases where companies would be given tax holidays for a period of about 5 years only for them to liquidate and in some cases register as new companies.

Transparency in disbursements
It was also difficult to track the percentage of royalties that contributed to the development of the community. It was important for citizens to know the percentage of disbursements to each sector in order to hold district assemblies and government accountable.

Scope of the initiative
The scope of the initiative was narrow and therefore should be expanded to include other sectors as timber, fisheries etc. The template for reporting should address Ghanaian concerns such as social and environmental issues.

Ownership of process
The process so far had been seen as government owned and driven by the ministry of mines and the chamber of mines. The chamber of mines which was representing the interest of the mining companies was the same agency developing the templates to police the companies. Civil Society was calling for representation of other sectors such as the ministry of finance, lands and forestry, local government etc.

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