Latest update December 16th, 2024 9:00 AM
Publishing all mining agreements good for transparency, but institutional changes needed – GGMC Commissioner
Commissioner (ag.) of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), Newell Dennison, has said that in order for Guyana to become compliant with the recommendations of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), institutional changes are inevitable.
Commissioner (ag.) of GGMC, Newell Dennison
Dennison was at the time responding to queries about an EITI recommendation that all mineral agreements must be made public.
In its 2017 report, EITI suggested that Guyana comply with requirement 2.4 (a) of its 2016 Standard, which states that implementing countries are encouraged to publicly disclose contracts and licences that provide the terms attached to the exploitation of oil, gas and minerals.
However, the GGMC Commissioner reminded that publishing of the agreements are not as straightforward as it appears.
“Remember certain confidentiality elements are found in these agreements which essentially restrain GGMC as the supervisory agency from releasing contract information, and there is nothing which mandates the companies to do so either.”
As such, Dennison asserted that the solution may be found in institutional changes —particularly in the amendment to laws which apply to contracts and information sharing.
“An amendment in the law that will allow for information to be shared without breaching the confidentiality provision can be useful…”
Dennison suggested further that in addition to the amendment, “there are different mechanisms that may be enacted that will allow agencies to provide information that otherwise we couldn’t provided because of the different types of constraints.” Towards this end, the GGMC Chairman noted that upgrading of the Information Technology is also necessary.
“The IT system has an essential role to play, since the real issue here is getting the information to the relevant bodies in a manner that is easily accessible and lawful.”
Dennison proposed that the construction of an inter-agency database would assist the process
“For example, if someone applies for a licence and an official at GRA wants that information about the applicant … rather than having to write the Commissioner of GGMC and the Commissioner having to pull files to find out, they should be able to pull a database up from GGMC.”
According to Dennison, GGMC is working with the transparency body to ensure the agency can meet the new standard for EITI reporting that comes into effect by 2021.
In its 2017 report, the EITI noted that while the Mining Act (1989) does not include any expressed restrictions on the public disclosure of mineral agreements and licences by the government, mineral agreements are not currently available electronically.
Furthermore, the report states that a common model agreement that provides the standard terms attached to the management of mines does not exist. On this ground, it was recommended that the EITI Secretariat in Guyana maintain an archive of copies of all active mineral agreements that are available.
Additionally, it was recommended that the Multi-Stakeholder Group of the local EITI chapter set out a work plan for the publication of all mineral agreements in the mining sector.
The report says that this work plan may include the following: defining how the electronic publication of mineral agreements can be undertaken; the steps required for all mineral agreements to be published electronically and how to make these accessible to the public; a realistic timeline as to when such data could be available; and performing a review of the institutional or practical barriers that may prevent such electronic publication.
The EITI is an international body that requires implementing countries publish comprehensive reports, which include the full disclosure of government revenues from the extractive sector, as well as the disclosure of all material payments made to the government by companies operating in the oil, gas and mining sectors.
The objective of Guyana’s first report is to help in the understanding of the level of contributions of the extractive sector to the economic and social development of the nation in order to improve transparency and good governance at all levels of the extractive industry value chain.
BDO LLP, a United Kingdom (UK) Accountancy and Advisory firm, was appointed as the Independent Administrator to prepare the first GYEITI Report for the year ended 31, December 2017.
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