Parliamentary Oversight of Mineral Revenues

As part of our continuing work to strengthen the capacity of parliaments in sub-Saharan Africa to oversee natural resource management, Revenue Watch has created a short guide with some basic information for parliamentarians regarding mineral resources and the revenues they generate.

The guide is still in development, but is available here for download in draft form only. The guide offers a set of questions that members of parliaments might need to ask in order to ensure that the country receives maximum revenues for the minerals extracted and that these are used in ways that will most benefit the country and its people.

The guide is divided into two parts:

Part A: Setting the strategic framework
This involves setting the development vision for the country, clarifying the role of the minerals sector within this and establishing the legal framework to enact it.

Part B: Overseeing each key stage in the minerals "value chain."
Turning mineral resources in the ground into improved well-being for citizens takes a series of steps that together can be termed the "value chain." Maximizing benefit requires that different questions are raised at each stage in chain.

Please use the links to the right to download the draft guide as a PDF document in standard letter format or as a booklet suitable for folding.

LEARN MORE AND CONTACT RWI

For any further information on issues relating to this guide and the management of revenues from the extraction of minerals, please explore our web site or contact:

Matteo Pellegrini, Programme Officer, Training and Capacity Building mpellegrini@revenuewatch.org

Emmanuel Kuyole, Regional Coordinator, Africa
ekuyole@yahoo.com

Vanessa Herringshaw, Director, Training and Capacity Building
mailto:ekuyole@yahoo.com

Learn more about Revenue Watch's projects for parliamentary capacity-building.

DOWNLOAD Draft Guide to Parliamentary Oversight of Mineral Revenues (booklet format)

DOWNLOAD: Draft Guide to Parliamentary Oversight of Mineral Revenues (letter format)

ISSUES

EXPENDITURE TRANSPARENCY
It is impossible to ensure proper management of natural resource wealth by looking exclusively at revenues. Transparent and accountable management and expenditure of public funds is essential to addressing the poverty, corruption and autocracy that too often plague resource rich countries.
Read more ...
CONTRACT TRANSPARENCY
The contracts between governments and oil, gas and mining companies are central to any effort to trace revenues and expenditures in the extractive industries. Extractive industries contracts determine the benefits, obligations and indeed the transparency of the agreements between countries and industry. Read more ...

COUNTRIES

Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone's mining and petroleum sector has made a significant recovery since the end of the 11-year civil war in 2002. Mining accounted for about 30% of GDP in 2007 and 80% of exports in 2008, with diamonds contributing 85% of that total. A new Mining and Minerals Law was signed in 2009, marking important progress towards improved sector governance and legal reforms.
Iraq
Iraq, a nation of 25 million people, holds the second largest oil reserves in the world, estimated to exceed 300 billion barrels. While Iraq enjoyed a period of relative prosperity and modernization in the 1950s and 1960s, its more recent history of pervasive violence, mismanagement and abuse has denied the people of Iraq any lasting benefits from this wealth. Today, a nation mired in conflict, Iraq suffers severe shortages of fuel and power, despite the fact that it literally "swims on a lake of oil."