Transparency Initiative (EITI)

48 Literature review
Management] reforms [as] a serious weakness”. Referring
to the study from Shaxson (2009), it concludes that despite
observable improvements at federal level, the contribution
of NEITI remains vague as the introduction of audit
standards and controls are not considered as sufficient
given the volumes of revenues involved. However, for the
case of Mongolia the report indicates that harmonizing
reporting and audit standards as well as improving interministerial
collaboration “has helped Government
and stakeholders target and design actions to improve
performance”.
Wilson/van Alstine (2014: 32) also highlight positive developments
in the case of Ghana between 2010 and 2011,
which they ascribe to the GHEITI, yet missing to prove this
assumption with solid empirical data. They point out potentially
confounding factors such as the start of new oil
production sites or the increase of the gold price during
the same period. In contrast to Neumann (2014, see above)
they also attribute the developments in Nigeria to NEITI
by claiming that the Nigerian government has launched a
value-for-money audit due to the revelations made in the
2012 NEITI report (p. 34). However, again the report fails
to provide information how the authors came to this conclusion.
Moreover, they quote (p. 38) a study from Wilson
(2012), which states that the linkage between the creation of
awareness (which apparently can be attributed plausibly to
the initiative) and increased government capacity and performance
is not yet clear.
studies “were not yet able to show a significant effect of the
EITI on fighting corruption”. However, it has to be added
that corruption is very difficult to measure and that proxies
such as the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) may not be
suitable as they are highly subjective, as also Valverde (2014:
1f) declares. At least a hint in that direction could be found
in the study of Sovacool/Andrews (2015), referring to an independent
assessment of the EITI from Gillies/Heuty from
2011, who apparently found out that EITI countries feature
“less leakage in public expenditures”. Yet the empirical basis
for this assessment remains unclear.
Occasionally references to anti-corruption examples can
also be found in other studies, such as the one from Mildner/Lauster
(2011: 100) for the case of Ghana.
Papyrakis/Rieger/Gilberthorpe (2016) use panel data of the
2002-2011 period to explore how EITI membership links to
changes in corruption levels. Findings are such, that EITI
membership offers a shielding mechanism against the general
tendency of mineral-rich countries to experience increases
in corruption over time. This study is based on perception
level as captured by the Corruption Perception
Index (CPI) and has its merits by adding mineral dependency
as a variable, however endogeneity issues are not treated.
Concerning the contribution of the EITI to the enhancement
of voice and accountability as well as the perception
of corruption in candidate countries Acosta (2013: 99) summarizes
recent studies, which differ in their assessment to
some extent. The author suggests to consider external factors
such as a countries’ richness of resources or willingness
to participate in the initiative as explanatory factors for the
different findings, which might need to be investigated further.
Schmaljohann (2013: 19) confirms that other recent