GHEITI introduces beneficial ownership addresses for transparency in extractive licensing procedures
The Ghana Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) says enough progress has been made in tackling the issues of obscure licensing procedures and concealed ownership. Dr Steve Manteaw, the Co-Chair of the GHEITI, at a dissemination workshop, highlighted the significant progress that was made in promoting transparency and accountability within the extractive industry, leading to solving the longstanding concern of opaque licensing procedures. The workshop was part of the 2020 Ghana EITI reports on the mining, oil, and gas sectors held at New Abirem in the Birim North district of the Eastern region. In 2019, the government, through the Office of Registrar of Companies (ORC), and Parliament passed a new Companies Act (Act 992) that mandated the ORC to establish a central register for the collection of Beneficial Ownership (BO) information. Dr Manteaw said the transformative impact of the introduction of BO measures had successfully addressed long standing concerns about obscure...