Oslo, Norway – The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Board has with immediate effect suspended Liberia for failing to publish its EITI report for the fiscal period ending June 2016 within the 1 July 2018 deadline.
PUNCH recalls that in March of this year, amid heated controversy greeted by heightened criticisms, President George Weah appointed former Montserrado County lawmaker in the House of Representatives, J. Gabriel Nyenkan, Head of the Secretariat of the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI), in deliberate contravention of the Act that created the LEITI.
However, since his taking over at the agency that was marred by controversies and acrimonies, under Head of Secretariat Nyenkan’s leadership, the LEITI has failed to present a single report to its international regulatory body, with the Government of Liberia (GoL) pleading for an extension into the reporting deadline, a plea that was turned down by the EITI.
The decision to suspend Liberia followed a request by the Government of Liberia (GoL) to extend the reporting deadline, set by the EITI Standard. The Board found that the request did not meet the criteria for granting an extension.
“It is unfortunate that Liberia missed its reporting deadline. We are hoping that this is a temporary setback. We encourage the Government to consult all the relevant stakeholders and ensure that they are adequately represented in Liberia’s EITI multi-stakeholders group, in accordance with the EITI Standard”, a statement issued last Thursday by the EITI’s International Secretariat quotes the group’s Acting Executive Director Eddie Rich as saying.
“The International Secretariat is ready to support,” Eddie further said.
In accordance with the Standard, the EITI Board will lift the suspension once Liberia’s outstanding EITI Report is endorsed by the multi-stakeholder group (MSG) and published within six months of the deadline (i.e. by 31 December 2018).
The EITI Board noted in its decision to suspend Liberia that the extension requests had not been endorsed by Liberia’s MSG, as the group had not been reconstituted since the end of its term in October 2017.
The Board called on the Government of Liberia to reconstitute the MSG and to revitalize the implementation of the EITI, in partnership with industry and civil society organizations.
The EITI Board also declined Liberia’s request for an extension of its second Validation deadline, noting that the request did not meet the criteria for an extension either.
In taking its decision, the Board noted that a reconstituted MSG could take stock of progress, publish the outstanding EITI Report and consider whether to submit a request to delay the commencement of Validation.
Liberia was one of the first countries to implement the EITI and the progress it showed over the years was instrumental in the development of the EITI Standard in 2013.
In 2016, Liberia demonstrated that it was making meaningful progress in implementing the EITI Standard in one of the first EITI Validations of its kind in Africa.
Validation is the EITI’s quality-assurance mechanism. Liberia is currently scheduled to undergo its second Validation on 24 November 2018.
