EITI is not the end all for transparency when it comes to Guyana’s oil - Trotman

EITI is not the end all for transparency when it comes to Guyana’s oil – Trotman

Mar 25, 2017 News

By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
The vision of the Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, is not limited to just

Arnold and Porter Kaye Scholer’s Whitney Debevoise

the membership of Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Though Guyana is yet to secure membership with the EITI, the Minister is committed to ensuring that Guyana moves further up to securing membership of EITI plus, plus.
Three partners from international law firm—Arnold and Porter Kaye Scholer— were recently brought here by the Guyana Oil and Gas Association for a lecture on the SWF.
Arnold and Porter Kaye Scholer is versed on sovereign finance, corporate finance, corporate governing, etc. The three partners – Darren Skinner, Whitney Debevoise and Gregory Harrington – focused their lecture on an introduction to structure, governance and legal aspects of the SWF. However, during an exclusive interview with Kaieteur News, they spoke about how Guyana can benefit from membership in EITI.
The experts said that while EITI focuses on how much money a country is gaining from its extractive commodity, EITI plus, plus takes it to another level. Whitney Debevoise said, “EITI plus, then looks at the next several steps in the process. So this money is coming in, but what is the budget plan? How is this money to be allocated and spent? What are the procurement rules that will determine who is getting contracts?”
Debevoise also pointed out that EITI will look at the how money is actually spent compared to how it was budgeted. “So this is transparency at every stage which is important.” However, Debevoise noted that membership to EITI will require additional commitments for countries who wish to join.

Minister of Natural resources, Raphael Trotman

Contacted yesterday, Minister Trotman welcomed the comments made about membership in EITI. He noted, however, that Guyana is still very far away.
“It is too far off to say we are joining now. You cannot get a Plus, Plus without getting the main thing. These are like graduated stages but once you are a part of something you will want to keep improving…Once our membership is accepted the next step is to keep growing. By the time we get to that stage there might be a Plus Plus, Plus. It’s like grading in karate; you have to keep growing from one grade to another.”
With regards to membership for EITI Trotman said, “Meetings are being held and we are working assiduously to have the membership submitted by mid-year.”
Trotman said that even when the application is submitted, it may be quite some time before membership is approved. He pointed out that America and Trinidad took four years to secure membership. “It takes a while to move from submission to full membership.”