(Business in Cameroon) - On October 7, Réseau de lutte contre la faim (Relufa), a coalition of Cameroonian civil society organisations will be presenting the results of a study entitled, “EITI and mining governance in Cameroon: between rhetoric and reality. Sub-national payments and transfers highlighted in Figuil”.

Following the study conducted in Figuil, in the Extreme-North region, where companies such as Cimencam (the Lafarge group) and Rocaglia have been respectively producing cement and marble for over 50 years, Relufa has drawn the following conclusions: “In the absence of revealing companies’ contractual clauses, it is difficult to achieve the optimal or efficient supervision of payments; legal, institutional and operational frameworks are poorly adapted and inadequate to monitor sub-national payments and transfers, particularly in local communities.”

Relufa goes on to state that, in addition, “there is virtually no social or economic monitoring by the local authorities; the non-divulgation of contractual arrangements and the low degree of community and district participation in the whole process (definition, implementation, monitoring and evaluation) are operational obstacles to monitoring sub-national payments and transfers.”

In order to remove these obstacles, Relufa suggests that mining companies “negotiate and sign community development agreements with local districts and communities”. It also recommends that the Cameroonian State “make decentralisation a principle of management and mining resource monitoring; develop and implement an operational framework that gives local communities their share of revenue; and define and adopt an EITI law.”

According Relufa, the aim of this study financed by the Natural Resource Governance Initiative, is “to demonstrate the urgency of making sub-national transfers and the importance of monitoring the social expenditure (of mining companies) in Cameroon. On the other hand, the study explores the ways and means of appropriately integrating them in EITI (the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative whose new form includes analysis of sub-national transfers and social expenditure made by extractive companies) and lead mining to contribute more effectively and more deliberately to local economic and social development.”