MoU with EITI Madagascar

The memorandum of understanding relating to the transparency of beneficial ownership in the mining sector was established at the Salle Lacroix Amphitheater of the Ministry of Mines and Strategic Resources on December 4, 2023 at 3 p.m.

This is an agreement between EITI-Madagascar and SAMIFIN for exchanges of information and experiences in order to achieve more transparency of beneficial ownership in the mining sector.

The Executive Director of EITI-Madagascar insisted on the importance of Requirement 2.5 of the EITI standard and recalled that beneficial ownership is one of the requirements of the EITI standard. The objective of this requirement is to allow the public to know the people who actually own the companies operating in the extractive sector in Madagascar. Those identified by the multi-stakeholder group as high risk are included, to help deter inappropriate and corrupt practices in the management of extractive resources and to help track the ownership of politically exposed persons.

Furthermore, the common objective of this collaboration is to establish a national register of beneficial ownership, in accordance with the recommendations of the FATF, in order to guarantee transparency of beneficial ownership. He drew the parallel between this transparency and that of beneficial owners in the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism, with the different stages in the process: deterrence, prevention, detection, investigations, prosecution and asset recovery. He added that the mining sector was a risky sector, and asset recovery ensures better revenues for the State, hence the importance of this signature between the two entities. Furthermore, SAMIFIN invited EITI-Madagascar to join the National Steering and Coordination Committee for the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing as an actor network