The Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy (CEPA) has expressed the need of managing natural resources towards the domestication and implementation of standards of the extractive industry.
CEPA executive director Herbert Mwalukomo said this on Wednesday in Lilongwe during the regional inter-learning workshop on strengthening natural resources governance through shared learning with funding from the Southern Africa Trust.
“The workshop has been organised to create a platform for exchanging knowledge and experiences regarding strengthening governance of the extractive sector, equip participants with knowledge and skills useful in promoting good governance and promote regional linkages among stakeholders to promote collaboration and coordination in advancing natural resource governance.
“The other issue that we were looking at was tax justice. As you know, we talk about Malawi and even the African region being endowed with resources but we are not benefiting as much as we should, part of the reason is that our tax regime leaves alot to be desired. So we wanted to share experiences as how it is happening in the region.” He said
However, he was quick to point out that Malawi is still lagging behind in terms of promoting transparency in the mineral sector.
“We are doing something, but we still have a long way to go. We have countries such as Tanzania which already have a law that was enacted way back in 2015 and there are a number of lessons that have come out from it interms of the effectiveness.”
Moyna Mwenye, communications and research associate for Southern Africa Trust said
She added; “Our interest as Southern Africa Trust is to ensure that we are creating platforms for people to discuss valid issues in the region region. We support CEPA here in Malawi and other partners well to do related dialogue and conversations. So through the project that we are financing under CEPA, they have managed to hold this kind of discussion within the region for others to come in from Zambia, Tanzania and share experiences how transparency it is in the extractive sector.”
The theme focused on strengthening transparency and accountability in the Malawi extractive sector project.
