GOVERNMENT has to date not joined the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) which promotes accountability in natural resources governance and enhances transparency.
This was revealed by Transparency International-Zimbabwe (TI-Z) in a recent report on natural resources governance.
Finance minister in Mthuli Ncube in his 2019 national budget statement promised that the country would join EITI in order to adopt best practices in management of the country’s natural resources and enhancing transparency and accountability.
But the TIZ said, sadly, these pronunciations by Ncube had not yet been implemented.
Twenty-four African countries out of a membership of 54 are said to have joined the EITI, which was established as a global standard to promote the open and accountable management of natural resources including minerals.
“This has affected citizen participation in mineral resource management and explains the varying and unresolved conflicts between government, mining companies and citizens,” the TI-Z said.
“On the other hand, without frameworks for public disclosure of contracts and tax payments paid by mining companies and those received by the government, the fight against illicit financial flows (IFFs) and corruption in particular remains a challenge.”
EITI has standards that require disclosure of information along the extractive industry value chain from the point of extraction, to how revenues make their way through government coffers, and how they benefit citizens.
TI-Z said as a result, the lack of transparency and accountability in the mining sector had resulted in the State’s limited ability to optimise the mineral resource endowments.
