The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) says it is committed to ensuring effectiveness, transparency and accountability in the use of the revenue gotten from the extractive sector in Nigeria.
This, the organisation said would be achieved through its Accountability in Extractive Sector (AES) Cluster, comprising 10 partner organisations, within the framework of the Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local Engagement (SCALE) project, with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Palladium.
The Program Manager of CISLAC, Chinedu Bassey, while speaking a learning event to x-ray the cluster’s focus said: “What we are doing mostly is to create awareness about all the existing initiatives, create a campaign around them, and sensitize the public to lend their voices, because we believe that when a critical mass of voices are speaking about an issue, it has that effect of getting the state actors or responsible institutions to take the right actions, for the benefit of the citizens who are actually the rightful owners of these resources.”
He said there were three streams of outcomes, that the cluster was looking at majorly to entrench some of the initiatives that Nigeria had signed.
The outcomes, he said include “the contract Transparency Initiative, the beneficial ownership disclosure, commitments within the OGP and they are also pushing for a strict implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act.”
“This project presents an opportunity for us as one of the auspices for which we want to make sure that we throw this information out to the open and elicit citizens’ opinions and push towards having the government make good of what they committed to doing,” he added.
The Personal Assistant to the Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), acknowledged the relationship between the commission, CISLAC and the Cluster, while appreciating the significant role they had played in supporting the process all the way.
The Accountability in Extractive Sector (AES) Cluster, anchored by CISLAC, comprises 10 organisations- Community Conciliation and Development Initiative (CCADI) in Rivers state; Support for Training and Entrepreneurship Program (STEP) in Akwa-Ibom state; Good Governance Team (GGT) Nigeria in Abuja; Connected Advocacy for Empowerment & Youth Development Initiative (Connected Advocacy) in Edo state; Speak Out Africa Initiative in Abuja, Policy Alert in Akwa-Ibom state; Social Development Integrated Center (Social Action) in Abuja; International Centre for Women Empowerment and Child Development (ICWECD) in Delta state; Institutional and Sustainable Development Foundation (ISDF) in Abuja and Lagos state and Better Community Life Initiative (BECOLIN) in Imo state.
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