Reaffirmation of EITI project level reporting: The greater the detail – the stronger the impact
EITI Board members and around 70 stakeholders gathered on 8 March in Bogotá, Colombia for the 36th EITI Board meeting to discuss progress in implementing the EITI in 51 member countries.
Figures to benefits: what we have achieved in a year
The 2017 EITI Progress Report presented at the meeting highlights the most impressive case-studies among the member countries and captures impact stories across the world. Fourty-two EITI Reports were published in 2016 collectively disclosing about USD 320 billion of taxes and royalties. The EITI continues to pioneer in the beneficial ownership disclosures and recently adopted 44 national roadmaps would lead to full transparency in company ownership until 2020. Most EITI countries plan to amend sector legislation and 21 countries have committed to making beneficial ownership data available through a public register. Twenty-six EITI countries have adopted an open data policy on the access, release and re-use of EITI data. Twenty-seven countries have already published extractive contracts.
On the first day of its meeting in Bogotá, the EITI Board also agreed continued to assess the performance of 51 implementing countries against the EITI Standard. It found Ghana, Mauritania and Sao Tome e Principe, to have made meaningful progress. The Board also found that the Kyrgyz Republic, the Solomon Islands and Tajikistan had made inadequate progress and were suspended with sets of corrective actions to be addressed in the next 12 to 18 months.
Benefiting from details: project level reporting
The EITI requires that revenue data is presented by project (requirement 4.7), provided that it is consistent with the SEC Rules and the EU Accounting Directive. The Board members recognised an importance of the project by project reporting for the implementing countries and how various stakeholders could benefits from project reporting details. In Ukraine, for instance, the government would use the project data to stay accountable for the citizens. In Nigeria, the project level data would be beneficial to citizens living in extractive regions. The Board discussed ways and timelines in which that this can be implemented.
Transparency and good governance: Colombia publishes second EITI Report
The Colombian Government hosted a reception for the EITI Board and observers. The second Colombian EITI Report covering 2014 and 2015 was launched by Minister of Mines and Energy German Arce. Minister Arce stressed that this second report confirmed the commitment of the Colombian government, industry and civil society to transparency and good governance of the sector. He highlighted that this second report confirmed the dwindled contribution of the sector to public coffers due to depressed commodity prices.
EITI Chair Fredrik Reinfeldt thanked the Colombian government for hosting the EITI Board. Civil society organisations (CSOs) and industry members of the Colombian National Committee Fabio Velazquez and Rafael Hertz commented on the 2014-2015 Report. Velazquez asked for future EITI Reports to cover socio- and environmental flows related to the extractive sector while Hertz stressed the importance of consolidating the EITI platform to continuing building trust.
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The record of the Board meeting will be found in the forthcoming minutes (see here).
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