Will EITI ensure accountability in Uganda’s oil, gas sector?

Recently, Uganda joined the Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) making it the 54th country in the world and 26th in Africa to subscribe.
EITI is a global standard for the good governance of oil, gas and mineral resources. 

The Initiative seeks to improve transparency and governance of natural resources in member countries around the world.  
It requires information along the extractive industry value chain from the point of extraction, to how the revenue makes its way through the government and its contribution to the economy of the member country.

With the mystery surrounding Uganda’s 6.5 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves that were confirmed as the fourth largest in the Sub-Saharan Africa by the international monetary Fund in 2013, implementation of the EITI standard in the  oil and gas sector could save the country the effects of an oil curse syndrome. 

Many oil producing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa always suffer the paradox of poverty amid plenty that results from poor management or investment of oil revenue by governments. 

EITI can therefore promote transparent, accountable and sustainable development; and ensure both political and economic stability for a country.

 However, it should be noted that subscribing to the EITI alone doesn’t guarantee these benefits. The different stakeholders still have to make several interventions, especially in bridging the gaps in the EITI processes to ensure the already made efforts are not wasted.

For example, EITI will require the disclosure of revenues received from oil companies, and contracts and agreements signed between government and companies. This will help the general public and other stakeholders to ask questions on any discrepancies identified.  

Through its reporting, EITI can also disclose corruption evidence and other irregularities. If well and effectively implemented, EITI surely has the potential to guarantee accountability by government. 

Whereas EITI processes do not in themselves involve prosecution for corruption or mismanagement of revenues, other relevant government ministries, departments and agencies are called upon to play their role. 
Therefore, law enforcers have a big role to play to ensure EITI claims are taken serious and victims made to face the law.

 If the law enforcers allow being side-lined by elite political actors, EITI’s efforts to fight corruption will yield no fruits as proved by  Benjamin Sovacool’s 2016 study on EITI effectiveness.

It’s clear that EITI’s strength is in the disclosure of wide set of information within the extractives sector. 
However, it’s very possible for sector corrupt actors to structure deals in a way that avoids EITI reporting process just as they avoid other checks in the system.

 A 2019 EITI discussion paper on its fight against corruption shows that Nigerian officials set up a special account to receive controversial payment made by Shell for their rights over an oil block rather than routing the funds to a government agency account. For this reason, the payment didn’t appear in the country’s EITI reports.

 As stated by the representative of the Minister of Energy and Mineral Development while officiating at last month’s National Multi-stakeholder dialogue on EITI organised by Civil Society Coalition on Oil and Gas (CSCO), all stakeholders have to make sure that the path to transparency is smooth by cooperating with each other, both within government and with-out since no agency can single handily ensure transparency in the extractives industry.
 EITI presents us with a number of benefits, but these will only be achieved if every concerned stakeholder performs their role towards promoting transparency and accountability.

 Mr  Hillary Turyatunga  is an
oil and gas researcher at  ACODE