The Solomon Islands Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (SIEITI) is dedicating itself to ensure the government, companies, landowners and other relevant stakeholders are well informed about resource benefits from the mining industry.

This was revealed by SIEITI director and Under Secretary - Economics for the Ministry of Finance and Treasury, Mckinnie Dentana and their communications officer Vincent Obimae during an interview.

Dentana said SIEITI is part of the global campaign known as Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) headquartered in Oslo, Norway.

They had two members in the region namely Solomon Islands and Papua New Guenea (PNG).

They basically worked as a Non Government Organisation (NGO) with their overall aim to report on transparency processes pertaining to revenues generated from the mining industries and how those revenues were distributed to stakeholders according to their legally binding agreements.

Dentana said that their work is voluntary, which means that mining companies have the right to refuse or accept them to evaluate transactions involved in revenue earned and royalty shared.

“But we are still pushing hard for this project to be legislated so that it is compulsory for every mining operation in Solomon Islands rather than being voluntary,” he said.

“We are looking forward to consult with stakeholders about the mining operation in Rennell, but again this is voluntary so it will depend on the company whether to involve our work in their mining operation or not.

“Our work is made difficult because it is not legislated but hopefully this will soon be included in the legislation so that purported corruptions occurring in the mining industry could be minimised,” he stated.