Oil and gas com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing in T&T will soon have to pub­lish what they pay to the Gov­ern­ment in tax­es and roy­al­ties, when this coun­try be­comes com­pli­ant with the Ex­trac­tive In­dus­tries Trans­paren­cy Ini­tia­tive (EITI) "lat­er this year".

In re­sponse to a Busi­ness Guardian e-mail query, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine on last week said: "We are ag­gres­sive­ly pur­su­ing full mem­ber­ship in the EITI. This, as you would re­call, was a man­i­festo promise of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship in 2010. EITI com­pli­ance re­quires putting a num­ber of things in place. The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs has been work­ing with the Vic­tor Hart-led steer­ing com­mit­tee, which in­cludes rep­re­sen­ta­tives from in­dus­try and civ­il so­ci­ety, to en­sure that we meet all the mile­stones re­quired for EITI com­pli­ance. We ex­pect to meet all re­quire­ments for com­pli­ance lat­er this year. The World Bank has al­so been very sup­port­ive of T&T's ef­forts at EITI com­pli­ance and has sup­port­ed this ini­tia­tive by way of a grant."

T&T has a dead­line of Au­gust 28 to pro­duce a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion re­port for Oc­to­ber 2010 to Sep­tem­ber 2011. The process of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion be­gan in March, ac­cord­ing to the EITI web­site, which states that the re­port was "de­layed be­cause of dif­fi­cul­ties in col­lect­ing da­ta (most­ly due to le­gal ob­sta­cles) but it is ex­pect­ed to be fi­nalised in com­ing months."

Ac­cord­ing to EITI: "Pub­lish­ing and dis­sem­i­nat­ing the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion re­port and con­duct­ing val­i­da­tion be­fore the dead­line of Au­gust 28 is ex­treme­ly chal­leng­ing."

Un­der the EITI stan­dard, com­pa­nies pub­lish what they pay to gov­ern­ments, and gov­ern­ments pub­lish what they re­ceive in an an­nu­al EITI coun­try re­port.

"The EITI Cri­te­ria spec­i­fies the need for reg­u­lar re­port­ing," the EITI said in its rules book. The EITI Rules, 2011 edi­tion, stip­u­lates that im­ple­ment­ing coun­tries are re­quired to pro­duce their first EITI re­port with­in 18 months.

"There­after, im­ple­ment­ing coun­tries are re­quired to pro­duce EITI re­ports an­nu­al­ly, cov­er­ing da­ta no old­er than the sec­ond to last com­plete ac­count­ing pe­ri­od. Coun­tries that have not pro­duced a re­port for more than two years may be sus­pend­ed and delist­ed from the EITI," the EITI said.

In EITI-com­pli­ant coun­tries, the gov­ern­ment is re­quired to is­sue "an un­equiv­o­cal pub­lic state­ment of its in­ten­tion to im­ple­ment the EITI; to com­mit to work with civ­il so­ci­ety and com­pa­nies on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the EITI; to ap­point a se­nior in­di­vid­ual to lead on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the EITI," and "to es­tab­lish a mul­ti-stake­hold­er group to over­see the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the EITI," the doc­u­ment said.

The mul­ti-stake­hold­er group, in con­sul­ta­tion with key EITI stake­hold­ers, should agree and pub­lish a ful­ly-cost­ed work plan, con­tain­ing mea­sur­able tar­gets, and a timetable for im­ple­men­ta­tion and in­cor­po­rat­ing an as­sess­ment of ca­pac­i­ty con­straints, the EITI said.

"Oil, gas and min­ing com­pa­nies must sup­port EITI im­ple­men­ta­tion," in or­der for the coun­try to get val­i­da­tion, the EITI said.

Ram­nar­ine was re­spond­ing to a May 16 Busi­ness Guardian sto­ry about T&T's rank­ing on the Re­source Gov­er­nance In­dex.

He said T&T's rank­ing of tenth place out of 58 hy­dro­car­bon-pro­duc­ing coun­tries "comes as no sur­prise." He said T&T has a "long-es­tab­lished rep­u­ta­tion as a good place to do busi­ness. In T&T, we have a well-es­tab­lished and strong leg­isla­tive frame­work gov­ern­ing the en­er­gy sec­tor, start­ing with the Pe­tro­le­um Act and its reg­u­la­tions, the Pe­tro­le­um Pro­duc­tion Sub­sidy and Levy Act and the Pe­tro­le­um Tax­es Act. It is for this rea­son we have al­ways at­tract­ed the best com­pa­nies in the world."

Ram­nar­ine said T&T's thrust to be­come a full mem­ber of the EITI has the sup­port of "the com­pa­nies that op­er­ate in the en­er­gy sec­tor and civ­il so­ci­ety."

He said at the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs, "we have al­ways pre­sent­ed the an­nu­al au­dit of gas re­serves that have tra­di­tion­al­ly been done by Ry­der Scott. This is usu­al­ly pre­sent­ed in the third quar­ter of each year. I know of no oth­er coun­try that pub­licly presents its au­dit­ed gas re­serves on an an­nu­al ba­sis."

He said the min­istry has al­so been up­dat­ing its Web site and "how we present in­for­ma­tion. Our month­ly en­er­gy bul­letin is now as up to date as can be. At this time, the re­port, which is on­line, has March 2013 da­ta, and we are in mid-May. In the past, that re­port al­ways lagged by sev­er­al months."

Com­pli­ant al­ready

The EITI list­ed as com­pli­ant coun­tries: Azer­bai­jan, Al­ba­nia, Burk­i­na Fa­so, Ghana, Iraq, Kyr­gyz Re­pub­lic, Liberia, Mali, Mon­go­lia, Mozam­bique, Niger, Nige­ria, Nor­way, Pe­ru, Re­pub­lic of the Con­go, Tan­za­nia, Tim­or-Leste, and Zam­bia.

As can­di­dates for com­pli­ance, the EITI list­ed Afghanistan, Cameroon, Cen­tral African Re­pub­lic, Chad, C�te d'Ivoire, Guatemala, Guinea, In­done­sia, Kaza­khstan, S�o Tom� and Pr�ncipe, Solomon Is­lands, Tajik­istan, To­go, and T&T.

The EITI said it has had 21 com­pli­ant coun­tries, 16 can­di­date coun­tries, and that 33 coun­tries have pro­duced EITI re­ports ac­count­ing for 167 fis­cal years and US$1.008 tril­lion in gov­ern­ment rev­enue.

On May 23 to 24, (2013) the EITI will con­vene its Sixth Glob­al Con­fer­ence in Syd­ney, Aus­tralia. "When the over 1,000 del­e­gates from 95 coun­tries meet in Syd­ney lat­er this month, it will be at a defin­ing mo­ment for the emerg­ing glob­al coali­tion to en­sure trans­paren­cy of nat­ur­al re­sources," Jonas Moberg, head of the EITI sec­re­tari­at, wrote in his blog.

The Syn­dey con­fer­ence will fo­cus on how trans­paren­cy and the EITI is lead­ing to change in the 37 im­ple­ment­ing coun­tries, as well as agree­ing to a re­vised ver­sion of the EITI Rules, which will be re­placed by the EITI Stan­dard "to en­sure more trans­paren­cy in the years ahead," he said.

What's new

By the time T&T be­comes EITI com­pli­ant, the new stan­dard will be in ef­fect.

"It is based on the ex­pe­ri­ences from these first coun­tries that the in­ter­na­tion­al EITI Board and the EITI's part­ners have spent two years con­sult­ing and work­ing (with) to im­prove the EITI Stan­dard," the sum­ma­ry said.

"The re­vised stan­dard en­cour­ages more rel­e­vant, more re­li­able and more us­able in­for­ma­tion, as well as bet­ter link­ages to wider re­forms. It is al­so im­por­tant that we put in place a min­i­mum stan­dard that is not too oner­ous for coun­tries fac­ing ma­jor re­form chal­lenges, but which al­so en­cour­ages con­tin­u­ing im­prove­ment what­ev­er the start­ing point."

EITI chair Clare Short out­lined the pro­posed re­vi­sions in a blog post of her own. She said all EITI im­ple­ment­ing coun­tries al­ready de­vel­op an EITI work plan. In the re­vised EITI Stan­dard, a coun­try's work plan will have "a much more sig­nif­i­cant role," she said.

EITI mul­ti-stake­hold­er groups (MS­Gs) in each coun­try will be re­quired to set their own im­ple­men­ta­tion ob­jec­tives. These should ar­tic­u­late what they want to achieve with their EITI, and how they plan to re­alise these ob­jec­tives. "This en­sures that the EITI is well-ground­ed in the na­tion­al di­a­logue about how their nat­ur­al re­sources are gov­erned," she said.

In or­der to make the EITI Re­ports eas­i­er to un­der­stand and use, the re­vised EITI Stan­dard in­tro­duces a new re­quire­ment that EITI Re­ports must con­tain ba­sic con­tex­tu­al in­for­ma­tion about the ex­trac­tive sec­tor, she said. This in­cludes: en­sur­ing dis­clo­sure of pro­duc­tion fig­ures; en­sur­ing dis­clo­sure of own­er­ship of the li­cense hold­ers, with dis­clo­sure of ul­ti­mate ben­e­fi­cial own­er­ship be­ing en­cour­aged; a de­scrip­tion of how rev­enue is al­lo­cat­ed in­to state, lo­cal or oth­er ac­counts; a de­scrip­tion of the fis­cal regime, with dis­clo­sure of pro­duc­tion con­tracts be­ing en­cour­aged.

Sev­er­al of the EITI re­port­ing re­quire­ments found in the pre­vi­ous EITI Rules have been strength­ened and the EITI Stan­dard in­tro­duces new re­port­ing re­quire­ments in a num­ber of ar­eas, she said.

The re­port­ing pro­ce­dures will now re­quire an in­de­pen­dent ad­min­is­tra­tor and the MSG to as­sess pre­vail­ing au­dit­ing prac­tices and agree on pro­ce­dures for en­sur­ing ac­cu­ra­cy of the da­ta to be dis­closed in the EITI Re­port. "These changes seek to en­sure that the EITI Re­port pro­vides a com­plete pic­ture of the rev­enues re­ceived, and that the EITI Re­port more clear­ly ad­dress­es the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of the da­ta," she said.