EITI Suspends Iraq Membership: A Serious Setback

By Ahmed Mousa Jiyad.

Any opinions expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

EITI Suspends Iraq Membership: A Serious Setback For Transparency That Should Be Addressed Promptly And Effectively

The recent decision by the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) to suspend Iraq’s status as a compliant country could, under the already fragile transparency environment in the Iraqi petroleum sector, deal a devastating long-term blow to transparency and wash away ten years of Iraqi efforts.

Therefore, it is a matter of urgency that the Parliament and the Council of Ministers should intervene, forcefully and immediately, to oblige both the Ministry of Oil and the NS-IEITI to comply fully, effectively and in a timely manner with the EITI 2016 Standard, to ensure a positive validation in order to restore and enhance Iraq standing as a compliant country in EITI.

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Mr Jiyad is an independent development consultant, scholar and Associate with the former Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES), London. He was formerly a senior economist with the Iraq National Oil Company and Iraq’s Ministry of Oil, Chief Expert for the Council of Ministers, Director at the Ministry of Trade, and International Specialist with UN organizations in Uganda, Sudan and Jordan. He is now based in Norway (Email: mou-jiya(at)online.no, Skype ID: Ahmed Mousa Jiyad). Read more of Mr Jiyad’s biography here.