EITI Board welcomes progress on oil, gas and mining transparency in Honduras

Report highlights further opportunities to promote greater transparency and accountability.

25 October 2107 - Honduras has made “meaningful progress” in implementing the EITI Standard. Honduras joined the EITI in 2013, and has published information about the sector covering fiscal years 2012 to 2014.

Validation is the EITI’s independent evaluation mechanism. It assesses whether EITI implementation is in line with the EITI Standard, examines the impact of the EITI, and makes recommendations for further reforms.

• View the full decision including the scorecard and supporting documentation

In a statement, the EITI Board recognised Honduras’ efforts to institutionalise extractive industry transparency through the 2013 Mining Law and contracts in the hydrocarbon sector that require companies to comply with the EITI Standard.

The EITI has brought together government, industry and civil society in trust-building collaboration, and stakeholders have worked together to provide an unprecedented and comprehensive review of the Honduras’s extractive industries.

The Board highlighted important gaps, such as monitoring of production, modernization of the mining annual company declarations, the collection of municipal taxes and disclosures of mandated social payments.

It also encouraged stakeholders to consider further opportunities to add value, e.g., by further improving the cadastre system to include beneficial ownership information, harmonizing the classification of extractive companies by the mining regulator, and integrating revenue collection data in the systems of the tax agency (SAR). It encouraged the government to integrate the EITI’s disclosure requirements into existing systems in the mining regulator, the tax agency, the finance ministry and Institute for Access to Public Information (IAIP).

Reflecting on the impact of EITI implementation in Honduras, Chair of the EITI Board Fredrik Reinfeldt said:

The Board recognises Honduras’ efforts to ensure that key data on extractive industry transparency is systematically disclosed through the 2013 Mining Law and hydrocarbon contracts. I hope stakeholders will build on this foundation and fully embed the disclosure of EITI data in the management of the oil, gas and mining sectors. Prompt implementation of the beneficial ownership requirement, in particular, will help Honduras to ensure licenses are awarded more fairly and that obscure owners are exposed to scrutiny”

Carlos Lopez-Contreras, Chair of the MSG, said:

"The EITI Board decision recognises the intention of Honduras of adhering to the principles of open government in this, rather modest in size, sector as part of its overall commitment to the OGP"

Notes

• Validation is the EITI’s independent evaluation mechanism. It assesses countries against progress made in meeting the 2016 Standard.
• The Board decision in full, including corrective actions and impact of the EITI in the country, can be found here: https://eiti.org/honduras-2017-validation
• The reports giving an extensive review of Honduras' extractive sector can be found here: https://eiti.org/document/validation-of-honduras-2017-documentation
• The Board has taken decisions on the status of Honduras on 25 October 2017: eiti.org/document/validation-schedule-decisions
• See here for a full explanation of the various levels of progress under the EITI Standard.
• See here for a full explanation of the various levels of progress under the EITI Standard.
• For further information about the EITI in Honduras, please visit the country page on the EITI website.