Lack of a legislation to empower Tanzania Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (TEITI) to carry out its business has been described as a hamstrung when it comes to compelling mining stakeholders to take part in audited financial reports reconcilliation.

Although the initiative is aimed to bring about more transparency through companies engaged in oil, gas and minerals, to publish their financial reports and governments to disclose their receipts from the firms, implementation of the same has been rendered difficult.

A study carried out by TEITI last month revealed other stumbling blocks as taxpayers not comply with requests to lodge their reporting templates even when they had been selected to take part in the reconciliation process.

It further mentioned the other obstacle as the failure to comply with all the reporting requirements, especially for the companies that have been provided with reporting templates.

It is said that various measures were made, including urging reporting entities to comply with TEITI reporting requirements by providing supporting documents.

Despite all this, nothing had been done, the study whose reported was issued last week said, adding that this shows that without a legal mandate, it’s difficult to sanction companies which fail to comply with TEITI rules.

However the study quoted the Reconciliation Team Leader Juvinal Betambira as saying: “To ensure that companies cooperate before TEITI gets legislation, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral (MEM) is committed to intervene administratively when necessary to make such companies to comply.”

Betambira’s report also noted figure differences between those provided by the government and those furnished by companies amounting to 44bn/-.

However, it was discovered that the amount was of unresolved differences which were due to confusion between TRA and companies in distinguishing payments that are deposits (refunds) from revenue receipts.

The 23 taxpayers selected paid approximately 99 percent (389bn/-) of the total mineral taxes received by the government agencies.

November 18, 2008, the government issued a public statement of its decision to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) to increase transparency and accountability in the national extractive industries, thus forming TEITI.