Financial Transparency Coalition

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is widely considered one of the world’s nations with the highest levels of natural resource wealth. In particular, the nation is richly endowed with many types of mining industries—including copper, cobalt, gold, diamonds, and tin—and timber. In fact, DRC accounts for 51% of the world’s extraction of cobalt and is the world’s fourth largest producer of diamonds. Despite this wealth, and in part because of it, the country also has experienced conflict, economic instability, and systematic corruption since its independence in 1960. These dynamics have contributed to its status as the world’s poorest nation...

According to Transparency International’s 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, Liberia ranked #1 in the world. And the Liberian population, with an outstanding 96%, believes that their legislature was corrupt. Global Financial Integrity estimates that the country lost an average of US$1 billion per year to illicit financial flows from 2001-2010. This comes despite Liberia’s President Sirleaf’s promise to “debilitate the cancer of corruption” in 2006.

International oil companies such as the U.S. giant Chevron are beginning exploration off of Liberia’s coastline. However, this new research by Global Witness and Liberian Oil and Gas Initiative (LOGI)¹ suggests that while Liberia has come a long way from the devastating set of resource-financed civil wars that claimed the lives of 250,000 people between 1989 and 2003, serious governance problems persist, and the warning signs for the emerging oil sector are stark. Curse or Cure? How oil can boost or break Liberia’s post-war recovery shows that even before a discovery is made, there are deep-seated problems in Liberia’s oil sector: government officials and at least one company...

LONDON/MONROVIA – Far-reaching reforms of Liberia’s oil sector are urgently needed if its population is to benefit from future oil discoveries, says a report released today by Global Witness (1) and the Liberian Oil and Gas Initiative (LOGI) (2). As the country heads to the polls in October, and with major oil companies such as US giant Chevron trying to find oil in Liberia, these reforms must be a priority for any new government.