In September 2023, the African Regional Centre for Endogenous and Community Development (Centre Régional Africain pour le Développement Endogène et Communautaire – CRADEC) published a study report on transparency in the mining sector. With a focus on the artisanal and small-scale mining sub-sector in Cameroon, this study aims to be preventive and curative of transparency in Cameroon in the light of the requirements of the new Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) standard.
Entitled “Transparency in the Cameroonian mining sector: the case of the EMAPE sub-sector in Cameroon”, this study report looks at the state of compliance of the artisanal and semi-mechanised mining sector with the requirements of the legal and institutional framework, contracts and licences, and the audit of transparency in the Cameroonian extractive sector.
With regard to the mining sector’s compliance with the requirements of the legal and institutional framework, the report states that the Artisanal and Small-scale Mining (ASM) sub-sector is the most advanced in terms of mining sector activities in Cameroon. According to the study, compliance with EITI requirements in Cameroon’s ASM sub-sector still needs to be improved to bring it into line with certain EITI requirements.
Among its requirements, the report notes that 2.1.a requires implementing countries to disclose a description of the legal framework and tax regime applicable to the extractive industries. These are 2 mandatory disclosures of the legal framework applicable to the extractive industries on the one hand and the applicable tax regime on the other. The inventory consisted of verifying whether each of these disclosures (legal framework and tax regime of the ASM sector) is effectively made public, in full, in part or not at all.
With regard to disclosure of the legal framework and tax regime, this report shows that the rate of compliance with disclosure requirements in the mining sector is 56% for fully disclosed information and 44% for partially disclosed information. Regarding compliance by the ASM sector in terms of the granting of licences and contracts in accordance with EITI requirement 2.2, the authors report that the rate of compliance with required disclosures by the mining sector is 28% for fully disclosed information, compared with 6% for partially disclosed information and 67% for undisclosed information. As for the compliance rate for encouraged disclosures in the mining sector, the percentage of undisclosed information is 60%, while 20% of information is partially disclosed and 20% is fully disclosed.
Tiba Kassamse Ouédraogo
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