Cameroon EITI Compliant Status Masks Unresolved Transparency Challenges
Jaff Napoleon Bamenjo, Coordinator, RELUFA, JH Cameroon
Attention Petrol Pipeline. Photo courtesy of Christi Boyd.
On October 17, 2013, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Cameroon was declared an Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) compliant country by the EITI Board of directors. The declaration followed two consecutive failures by Cameroon in 2010 and 2012 to be validated as EITI compliant. However, through EITI implementation in Cameroon, the country has made some progress concerning government disclosure of revenues generated from the exploitation of oil, which was a taboo subject in the past. But despite this apparent progress, there are still important extractive revenues governance challenges. Achieving EITI compliant status is no doubt important for the improvement of the image of the government, but government needs to treat the newly obtained compliant status as a challenge to make extractive revenues transparency and overall transparency in governance a norm for the social and economic development of the country.
A critical analysis of the admission of Cameroon as an EITI compliant country is imperative especially at this moment, so as to draw important lessons for further improvement. In order to do this, it is important to assess the new 2013 EITI implementation standards while considering the strengths and the weaknesses of the admission of Cameroon and then analyze the stakes and challenges.
Some improvements could be observed with the most recent Cameroon Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) reports, which reveal company payments to the government and government receipts from companies. Revenue information in the 2009 to 2011 reports were presented in a disaggregated manner, showing precisely how much was paid by category of tax by each company concerned, a practice that civil society organizations monitoring the EITI implementation in Cameroon had requested for several years. Despite this seemingly appreciable progress, there are irregularities or challenges which need to be highlighted.
One challenge is that as an officially bilingual country, with English and French as official languages, information collection and records keeping have been done in only French for a long time, thereby depriving a segment of the population from information. Another challenge is the lack of coordination between governmental organizations responsible for various pieces of the collecting and recovering of extractive industries taxes, receipts, and other records.
There exists insufficient payment traceability in customs operations at the level of extractive companies. Also, the problem of sub national revenue payments remains obscure since the joint ministerial order which defines the terms of payment of the mining royalty to municipalities (15 %) and local communities (10 %), has not yet been signed and hence mining royalty transfers to local communities and councils has not begun.
The study “Knowledge, perceptions, needs and expectations of local populations of extractive exploitation sites,” conducted by the Cameroonian Publish What You Pay Coalition in which RELUFA, the Joining Hands network in Cameroon, is a member of the coordination team, found that only 9 % of the local population in the exploitation sites has an elementary knowledge on the EITI. Thus, the distribution of EITI reports, in compliance with requirement 18 of the standard, is not yet a reality at the local level. These weaknesses raise important questions on the status of the admission of Cameroon as a compliant country in the EITI.
Beyond a simple publication of figures, it is important for Cameroon to add value to the EITI and not simply go through the process to obtain good press as a transparent country. EITI is gradually moving beyond mere disclosure of figures and volumes. With the emergence of more mining projects in Cameroon and expectations for enormous mining income, it is imperative to take into consideration the local communities’ expectations regarding the redistribution of the mining revenues and the management of the income from the hydrocarbons sector. This is not the case at the moment and it makes it difficult for Cameroon to move towards economic emergence by 2035 as the current political discourse claims. Contracts disclosure or setting up regional EITI committees in Cameroon should be considered a new future challenge. It is indeed difficult to monitor the compliance of companies to their obligations if the contract clauses are not known. Equally, the artisanal, small mines and quarries sectors must be taken into account and their revenue contributions effectively recorded. The incomes of the artisanal and small mine sectors collected by regional delegations are important for localities where these activities take place and could impact their development if properly harnessed.
From the observed dichotomy between the EITI practices at the national level and the expectations and the needs at the local level, the new EITI standards will have to prioritize local EITI committees in order not only to promote transparency locally, but also to implement a mechanism which permits better control and supervision of payments and sub national transfers. In this sense, EITI local reports would allow for better evaluation of local governance in the extractive industries sector. For better governance to be a reality there should be proper coordination between the ministries concerned with handling extractive industries revenues notably the ministry of mines and that of finance.
In sum the implementation of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative in Cameroon has made the country witness some progress in terms of oil revenue information disclosure. Becoming an EITI compliant country can be hailed, but this masks important challenges. Transparency and the publishing of revenue information are necessary but not enough to guarantee good governance in the extractive industries sector.
