The African Energy Chamber (AEC), has said that new investments in hydrocarbons, renewable, nuclear and hydrogen resources are urgently needed to address the challenge of lack of access to electricity and clean coking fuels.
During its meeting with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) at the EITI International Secretariat in Oslo, the AEC said that while over 600 million Africans lack access to electricity, more than 900 million are without access to clean cooking fuels.
The chamber emphasised that this could be accomplished through improved sectoral governance, adding that Increased sector transparency is also required to draw even more investment.
Implemented in 52 countries of which 24 are African, the EITI serves as a global standard for the responsible governance of oil, gas and mineral sectors. The initiative seeks to strengthen key public and corporate governance issues of transparency and accountability by requiring the disclosure of information along the extractive industry value chain, from how revenues make their way through the government to how they benefit the public.
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For African oil and gas producers, membership allows countries to better compete for investment on a global scale by heightening investor confidence and demonstrating a government-led commitment to sustainable energy and mining sector development.
Speaking during the meeting, senior vice president of the AEC, Verner Ayukegba said that the AEC aims to facilitate best practices sharing and knowledge transfer to African businesses and the private sector when it comes to transparency, compliance and good governance.
“Adopting similar transparency standards, measures and systems as the EITI would be helpful to our members and to African businesses across the continent so that they can be in a position to not only adhere to ESG guidelines but also compete on international stock markets and appeal to foreign lenders,”he said.
Speaking further, he said that Norway and the EITI have done a lot of things right when it comes to working closely and engaging with civil society in the area of extractives, adding that African energy stakeholders can and should learn from this.
The meeting comes on the heels of the Glencore corruption scandal, in which Glencore International A.G. a Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company and its subsidiaries were found guilty of corruption, bribery and illicit profits in several countries, including Nigeria, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast and South Sudan.
This story was adapted from Leadership.
