MONROVIA, Montserrado – President George Weah has departed the country to attend a conference for the Africa Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.

According to an Executive Mansion release, the conference is focused on beneficial ownership transparency, which is intended to discuss and find answers to burning issues arising from the use of the continent’s lucrative extractive industries, such as the ways ownership transparency can be key to preventing tax evasion, mitigating illicit financial flows and raising revenues from extractives.

The release disclosed that the conference is being facilitated by the government of Senegal and will run between Tuesday, October 30 to Friday, November 2.

“The conference will also discuss how governments, industries, and civil society can work together towards beneficial ownership disclosure in extractives to help mobilize domestic resources,” the release added.

It will also afford leaders of EITI nations, who are driving extractive sector reforms, to improve the availability of ownership information, opportunity to share their experiences, progress, and challenges.

The conference will address other topics like improving revenue mobilization with beneficial ownership data, risks reduction in extractives licensing, legal approaches to ownership transparency, and making the ownership register public.

Earlier this month, the president finalized the reestablishment of the Multi-Stakeholder Steering Group of the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives. The action was taken one month after EITI suspended Liberia’s membership. EITI is the global standard for promoting open and accountable management of extractive resources.

The action by the board of EITI was in response to the country’s failure to publish its EITI report for the fiscal period ending June 2016 on July 1, this year. It also rejected a request from the government to extend the reporting deadline because it was not endorsed by the Multi-Stakeholders Group of MSG. The tenure of the MSG at the time had since expired and the president had not completed the setting up of a new MSG.

Featured photo courtesy of the Executive Mansion