National Audit Office hosted its first multi-stakeholder consultative workshop on Extractive Industries Accountability in The Gambia

From January 30th, 2022 to February 03, 2023, the National Audit Office in collaboration with the African Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (AFROSAI-E) hosted a weeklong multi-stakeholder consultative workshop on the theme ‘Extractive Industries Accountability in the Gambia’.

The Workshop brought together stakeholders from the National Assembly, government institutions, private mining, and oil exploration companies, civil society, and staff of the NAO Gambia, to discuss the roles and responsibilities of the key stakeholders along the AFROSAI-E value chain to identify risks therein.

The opening ceremony was graced by dignitaries including development partners, former AG of NAO Gambia and the Gambia’s Minister of Petroleum and Energy (Abdoulie Jobe). Minister Jobe in his opening remarks and keynote address on the theme ‘The importance of Accountability in the Gambia’s EI Sector’, shared that over the years, his Ministry has been developing and enhancing institutional and legal frameworks, processes, procedures and building the requisite competences to promote accountability in the hydrocarbons and solid mineral sub-sectors of The Gambia. He also presented the initiatives taken by the government in the promotion of accountability and transparency in what he called ‘a not yet fully-fledged EI sector in the Gambia.

During the course of the week-long forum led by AFROSAI-E’s facilitators and peers from OAG Uganda and NAO Malawi, the discussions, geared towards gathering relevant information and identification of possible risks within the Gambia’s EI sector, took the form of panel discussions, group exercises, and presentations from the key public institutions on their mandates, legal and institutional frameworks, and accountability mechanisms in place as well as their challenges. The participants in respective groups identified risks along the seven categories of the EI value chain:

  • Policies and Legal Framework
  • Government activities
  • Award of contracts and Licence
  • Monitoring of operations
  • Assessment and collection of revenue
  • Revenue Management
  • Implementation of sustainable policies – economic, environmental, and social concern.

As next steps from the workshop, the NAO team developed an action plan to identify the subsequent activities that will lead to identification of the first EI audit to be carried out by the NAO.