By Gedion Timothy 
PORT MORESBY: 26th 2021: The publication of Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative reports are meaningless if they do not give raise to critical policy debates for a robust mining and petroleum sector in Papua New Guinea, an official says.
Head of the Papua New Guinea EITI National Secretariat Mr. Lucas Alkan yesterday told leaders at the 36th Australia Papua New Guinea Business Forum that EITI work in PNG progressively helped shape policy discussion through EITI report recommendations and open discussions at the PNGEITI governing forum known as the PNGEITI Multi Stakeholder Group (MSG).
Papua New Guinea to date has published a total of six EITI reports since it joined more than 50 resource rich countries- in 2014 to implement the EITI Global Standards to promote transparent and accountable conduct of business in the mining and petroleum industry. The core function of EITI implementation is the publication of EITI reports against the EITI Global Standards.
Mr. Alkan said those reports must form part of policy discourse in mining and petroleum sectors of the economy as opposed to collecting dust in the shelves.
“Producing EITI reports are meaningless if these reports do not give rise to critical policy and legislative reforms for better management of the sector, “he said.
Mr. Alkan said important progress had been made since PNG’s first EITI report in 2015, providing greater transparency for Papua New Guineans over revenue streams from the country’s mining and oil and gas industry.
He said the PNG Government and resource owners receive maximum resource projects benefits by way of that EITI reporting identifying revenue leakages and improve corruption perception which in turn boss investor confidence.
“There needs to be transparency in all forms of payments, how development projects are negotiated and how licenses are issued to improve a country’s investment climate.
“EITI is a platform that can enable all stakeholders to work collaboratively and build trust to realise PNG’s vision for resources development,” Mr. Alkan explained.
“Some of the improvements and reforms arising from the work of EITI in PNG are that the EITI:
- has been complementing other Government initiatives like the Open Government Partnership (OGP) and the Independent Commission Against Corruption Law.
- provisions have been included in project MOAs and Agreements on benefits sharing arrangements for contract transparency.
- had established a platform for better collaboration and open discussions between different stakeholders and built trust.
- ensured a comprehensive report covering the extractive sector for PNG for the first time and had created reference data for debates.
- Report outcomes have influenced the Government to embark on reforming policy and resource laws to strengthen government systems and to ensure fair share from the benefits derived from resource developments .
- is now making progress in comprehensively reporting at sub-national levels of government, beneficial ownership disclosure, and increase transparency in State Owned Entities.
- has forced the government to disclose quasi-fiscal data and taken steps to address opaque nature of some tax incentives such as the Infrastructure Tax Credits.
- through its first report, ensured that the Income Tax Act was amended to remove secrecy provisions in the Act to enable the IRC to disclose tax revenue data for EITI reports.
- report recommendation has forced the EITI Secretariat and the Auditor General to work together to improve the quality of the financial data in the EITI reports.
- National Policy Framework on Transparency and Accountability was approved by Cabinet in 2018.”he outlined.
Mr. Alkan said chief among the policy thrust for improved EITI implementation in Papua New Guinea included the creation of an independent administrative body to administer effective EITI implementation in PNG.