In a note sent to Lusa following Angola's accession, the organization states that "reporting in accordance with the EITI Standard will help ensure that crucial information about Angola's extractive sector is made public, including beneficial owners and related contracts to extractive companies, as well as the management of state-owned companies and sectoral revenues".
This organization dedicated to transparency and accountability in the extractive industry adds that "the disclosures required in the context of EITI implementation can help to identify corruption risks, management deficiencies and areas of revenue loss and, ultimately, this information can support the making decisions and formulating improvements and promoting public debate in Angola".
Angola saw its candidacy approved on Friday, after a process that took three years, and which closes a cycle for the organization itself, since it was the Angolan oil sector that motivated the creation of this entity based in Oslo, in Norway.
"In 2003, opacity in Angola's oil sector led to the formation of the IETI, when calls from civil society advocates to address corruption issues attracted considerable attention", providing for the creation of a "global reporting standard", recalls the organization, adding that "corruption risks and governance challenges have persisted in Angola over the years, and there have been repeated calls for the country to implement the IETI Standard", something that is only now happening.
Angola joins the IETI "at a critical juncture in relation to global extractive governance; the covid-19 pandemic and recent volatility in oil prices have brought into focus the vulnerability of most extractive-dependent countries and increased calls to get involved in the energy transition", added in the note sent to Lusa.
On Friday, the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Diamantino Azevedo, said that all the procedures that the EITI required for acceptance as a member had been fulfilled, with the Government's declaration of intent being the first step.
Diamantino Azevedo underlined that Angola took on the challenge taking into account the principle of transparency and the fight against corruption, which governs the governance of the President, João Lourenço, and the need to change some aspects in the sector.
The Angolan official and chairman of the national commission that directed the process stressed that the team included, in addition to representatives of the Government, national and foreign mining and oil companies, members of civil society.
"We had the process of working with civil society from the beginning and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their engagement throughout the process", he said.
Angola's candidacy was submitted in March this year, having passed through different evaluation bodies of the EITI, culminating on Thursday with the admission by the International Committee of the EITI.
According to the minister, political strategies and reforms in the sector contributed to the acceptance of political strategies, namely the elimination of some conflicts of interest in the extractive industry.
"And that's how we did it, first, changing the governance model, and new governance models were approved, both for the mining sector and for the oil sector, which essentially stratify the activity of each body, clearly define which it is the activity of the Government, through the ministry of responsibility and the activity of regulatory agencies and the activity of both private and state companies", he underlined.
The head of the Petroleum and Mineral Resources portfolio highlighted that, with this model, conflicts of interest that existed were eliminated, "in which, for example, national companies played different roles".
"They played a business role, a regulatory role, a concessionaire role and all this created some bottlenecks for our activity, on the one hand, in terms of transparency, 'compliance' [compliance], but they also impeded the harmonious development of the oil activity as well as other resources minerals," he said.
Diamantino Azevedo stressed that the integration into the EITI will force the Government, foreign companies and civil society to overcome themselves, "bringing more transparency in the acts of governance and business activity, as well as in the activity of civil society as well".
"This will also help to improve efficiency, transparency and that we can all better monitor the use of revenues from extractive industry activities", he stressed.
