04-11-2013, 12:09 PM
Oneill is kicking butt and taking names. With the reorg of SOEs also is coming the EITI initiatives of transparency for mining and petroleum project partners. All payments to any government entity will be required to be reported. This will help propel PNG to gaining respect and legitimacy. Good stuff and companies like Shell will be forced to the front door
Declare payments!
By ISAAC NICHOLAS
MINING and petroleum companies will be required to disclose revenue payments they make to the national government, Treasurer Don Polye announced yesterday.
Similarly, the government will also disclose receipts of such payments to the people to encourage transparency of revenues generated from the extraction of natural resources in Papua New Guinea, he said.
Minister Polye said the National Executive Council has endorsed Papua New Guinea’s intention to sign the Extraction Industries Transparency Initiative (EIT) as part of the O’Neill-Dion government’s on-going commitment to fight corruption.
“This places information regarding sector-specific taxes and revenues in the public domain thereby empowering stakeholders to ensure accountability in financial transaction between government and extractive industry companies,” he said.
“We want to see transparency in how much proceeds that the government or the State earns through the mining and petroleum sector.
“At the same time, we would like to see transparency in the transaction of those proceeds from the businesses that engage in the extractive industry to the government.
“The public has the right to know how much money we are getting from the extractive industry that the government uses to develop infrastructure and other social services on the ground.
“And on behalf of the people, the government has the right to know how much is actually coming out and the transactions involved in terms of the proceeds we get from those areas.
“I have also announced a review on the taxation regime in PNG and the initial stage of the work has started. We have not, as a nation, done proper auditing on the mineral sector and the strongly emerging petroleum sector.”
Minister Polye said PNG now, as part of the EITI initiative, will now be in a position to seeing a lot of transparency and also knowing what is going on in terms of resources development in the country.
“The initiative will be championed by me as the Treasurer while its implementation will be led by the department of Treasury,” Mr Polye said.
“With this unequivocal declaration, the government commits to working in a meaningful and constructive way with the extractive industry participants and civil society organisations to implement the initiative in PNG.”
The leader of THE Party and Kandep MP said the government will be inviting all stakeholders to formalise a Multi Stakeholder Group (MSG) to oversee the implementation of EITI in PNG.