Guyana yesterday moved a step closer to joining the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), hosting its first technical working group meeting with stakeholders on the globally recognised governance framework for the natural resources sector that it had committed to joining several years ago.
“We have completed the first two steps in this process with the commitment of government, and the selection of the high level and working level focal points being myself as Minister of Governance, and Ms Tamara Khan, Governance Officer at the DGNRE. The third step we begin with [yesterday’s] meeting: the establishment of a Multi-Stakeholder Group which will support the final step of the creation of an agreed work plan in keeping with reporting and validation deadlines of the EITI Board,” Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman said at the meeting at the Cara Lodge.
“The first round of capacity building required to get the group through this latter step before an application can be submitted, is likely to come in January 2016 when our sister Caricom country Trinidad and Tobago’s EITI and the EITI Secretariat themselves conduct various working sessions for this group which we are initiating today,”