THERE needs to be more transparency on how revenues from the Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural Gas project are used, says Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) international secretariat director Mark Robinson.
He said, when sharing the second EITI validation report for PNG, that around US$700 million (K2.4 billion) was made, a share of which went to Treasury.
“More public information about how the rest of those revenues are allocated across Government to benefit citizens will be extremely beneficial,” Robinson said.
“We also think there is room to improve the transparency of contracts — future contracts entered into by the Government with foreign companies in oil, gas and mining.
“A third area is the beneficial ownership transparency and how to use the EITI data to identify the real owners of companies.
“This has the advantage of minimising the corruption risk ensuring that the owners are serious, committed and engage in legitimate activities.”
Robinson said “the success of implementing EITI in the country is at the local level”.
“The EITI has to be meaningful to the people living in remote parts if the country is rich with natural resources,” he said.
“So the question is how do we get the information and EITI reports out to the ordinary people and explain its significance.
“The people stand to gain a share of the transfers of revenues from the Government to localities and also benefit from social payments from companies.
“We want to put that information to the public domain and make it available to the people at the local level to earn their trust in the value of the extractive sector for them.”
The EITI International team were in country for a three-day consultation with stakeholders including PNGEITI multi-stakeholder group.
The National / Pacific Mining Watch