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RR RUEHBZ RUEHDU RUEHGI RUEHJO RUEHMA RUEHMR RUEHPA RUEHRN RUEHTRO
DE RUEHYD #0433/01 1331713
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 131713Z MAY 09
FM AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9888
INFO RUEHZO/AFRICAN UNION COLLECTIVE
RUEHRL/AMEMBASSY BERLIN 0066
RHMFISS/HQ USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC
RHEBAAA/DEPT OF ENERGY WASHDC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 YAOUNDE 000433 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR AF/C 
STATE ALSO FOR EEB/ESC DAVID HENRY AND STEVE GALLOGLY 
COMMERCE FOR ITA BURRESS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KCOR PREL PGOV EPET CM
SUBJECT: EITI'S PYRRHIC VALIDATION: CAMEROON WINS, 
TRANSPARENCY LOSES 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  Summary.  Predicting that the Extractive 
Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Secretariat will 
validate the Government of Cameroon's (GRC) participation in 
the EITI process in early 2010, Cameroonian civil society 
leaders warn that the GRC's gain--an unmerited publicity 
windfall--could prove costly to the promise of the EITI 
process.  The Embassy hosted an April 30 meeting with civil 
society leaders working on governance and transparency issues 
in Cameroon.  Although the GRC has technically complied with 
the letter of EITI guidelines, which the civil society 
leaders criticized as setting so low a threshold as to be 
meaningless, there has been no significant change in the 
manner in which Cameroon's oil, gas and mining revenues are 
reported and negligible progress towards the EITI's stated 
goal: "to strengthen governance by improving transparency and 
accountability in the extractive sector."  End summary. 
 
EITI: So Transparent, 
No One Knows It's There 
----------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  The Embassy invited a dozen Cameroonian civil 
society leaders working on governance and corruption, some of 
whom have been involved in the EITI process in Cameroon, to 
discuss Cameroon's participation in the EITI process and its 
impact on transparency and citizen oversight of revenues.  In 
2005, the GRC announced its intention to participate in the 
EITI process, which had been launched by former British Prime 
Minister Tony Blair in 2002 as an ambitious effort to improve 
governance in resource-rich countries by requiring 
disclosure--by the private companies and the recipient 
governments--of all payments derived from oil, gas and 
mineral exploitation.  Among the civil society leaders who 
met at the Embassy, there was consensus that, despite the 
publication of some previously unseen information regarding 
oil and gas revenues, the Cameroonian public remained 
universally uninformed about both EITI and the management of 
Cameroon's extractive industries. 
 
Transparently Not Transparent 
----------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  Despite the impression given by the GRC and some 
outside observers that the GRC is a strong participant in the 
EITI process, the civil society representatives argued that 
there has been no meaningful change in the culture of secrecy 
that has traditionally governed Cameroon's oil and gas 
sectors.  EITI has presented an unprecedented opportunity for 
the GRC to speak about its oil and gas revenues--a subject 
that was taboo even for GRC officials until the start of the 
EITI process--but the GRC has unilaterally dictated the terms 
of the conversation and released scant information.  The 
Publish What You Pay coalition, having worked on EITI in 
Cameroon for four years, just received its first copy of a 
contract for the extractive industries in Cameroon in May 
2009, and did so only through a third party, not the GRC or 
the EITI process.  To the extent Cameroon is complying with 
EITI's criteria, argued the civil society representatives, it 
is evidence that EITI's standards are so low as to be 
meaningless. 
 
Abiding the Letter, 
Undermining the Spirit 
---------------------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  To be compliant with EITI principles, for example, 
a country must establish an EITI committee that includes 
representatives from civil society, but there are reportedly 
no standards for how such a committee must function.  In 
Cameroon, the GRC unilaterally selected three organizations 
(representing each of the major religious faiths in Cameroon) 
to be the civil society representation.  When the Publish 
What You Pay network protested, the GRC agreed to add three 
more civil society representatives (but kept its own 
hand-picked three). 
 
¶5. (SBU)  In a strategy of co-optation that it has used 
elsewhere, the GRC held an open meeting for civil society to 
choose its representatives.  Any organization that appeared 
was given 50,000 CFA (about $100) and the assembled 
organizations were told to vote among themselves for who 
 
YAOUNDE 00000433  002 OF 002 
 
 
would sit on the EITI board.  The GRC's cash incentives 
succeeded in perverting the selection process, skewing the 
motivation for candidates and their supporters.  Until 
recently, the members of the EITI committee received 200,000 
CFA (about $400) for each meeting of the EITI committee; the 
amount was recently increased to 300,000 CFA (about $600) for 
each 2-3 hour meeting, with the Minister of Finance promising 
to increase the per diem to 400,000 CFA "after validation." 
 
Doing the Bare Minimum 
---------------------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  The EITI process grants participating governments 
the option to expand the scope of their engagement, but the 
GRC has repeatedly decided to limit its participation to the 
bare minimum required under the program.  Rather than release 
the revenue data in a disaggregated report (broken down 
company-by-company) as it is collected by the independent 
conciliator who compiles the report, the GRC-controlled EITI 
committee has decided to limit the transparency of the data 
by requiring the conciliator to aggregate it for release. 
This prevents analysts from comparing the terms and pricing 
of the various contracts.  In a similar display of limited 
buy-in to the concept of increasing revenue transparency, the 
committee has decided not to include the forestry sector in 
the EITI process. 
 
Acknowledging EITI's Limitations 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  Even EITI's critics recognize that, as a voluntary 
program, the EITI must strike a delicate balance in order to 
attract participation while remaining effective.  They also 
admitted that many had unreasonably high expectations for 
EITI, especially to the extent EITI would provide visibility 
beyond mere revenues and into state expenditures. 
Additionally, even if the GRC had displayed a greater 
willingness to share information, civil society organizations 
lack the capacity to usefully exploit many of the complicated 
elements of oil and gas contracts.  Even some of the EITI 
experts professed they were often at a loss to decipher the 
complexities of the extractive industries sector. 
 
Comment: EITI's Pyrrhic Victory 
is a Loss for Transparency 
------------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  There is a real danger that the credibility of 
EITI--and similar programs--will be undermined if EITI 
validation is perceived as a rubber-stamp for the GRC's 
failure to institute meaningful reform of the accounting for 
its extractive industry revenues.  Many Cameroonians perceive 
that international companies have colluded with corrupt 
Cameroonian leaders to fleece the nation of its natural 
resources and that whatever revenues the GRC received have 
been stolen and stashed away in international banks.  EITI 
was conceived and launched expressly to address this 
phenomenon.  EITI has provided a welcome forum for 
unprecedented conversations between the GRC and some civil 
society representatives, but those conversations have been 
largely one-sided and borne negligible results.  Four years 
into Cameroon's participation, EITI has not succeeded in 
fostering improved transparency or accountability for 
government revenues from the oil, gas and mining sectors in 
any meaningful way.  The EITI Secretariat's expected 
validation of the unfulfilled promise of EITI, even if 
inevitable, will only serve to further disillusion the 
Cameroonian public. 
 
¶9.  (U)  Post is engaging with the World Bank (which is 
planning a regional EITI conference in Douala in early June) 
and other donors to discuss what might be done to make the 
most of Cameroon's participation in EITI. 
GARVEY