Guyana must disclose all environmental payments by Exxon, other extractive companies - EITI

Guyana must disclose all environmental payments by Exxon, other extractive companies – EITI

May 13, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is urging Guyana to ensure the comprehensive and reliable disclosure of all environmental payments made to government by ExxonMobil and other extractive companies. It advised as well that the government should encourage companies to make similar disclosures about their social and environmental expenditures.

Guyana’s scorecard from the EITI Board

Additionally, EITI said Guyana should ensure public disclosure of the legal or contractual terms that require extractive companies to undertake mandatory social expenditures.
In accordance with its requirements, EITI said too that Guyana should ensure that all mandatory social expenditures are disclosed, where material social expenditures by companies are mandated by law or the contract with the government that governs the extractive investment.
EITI said the foregoing recommendations should be taken on board so that citizens can have a better understanding of the range of payments government receives from the oil, gas, and mining industries. It said too, that the suggestion would ensure Guyana improves its performance as regards compliance with EITI’s Standards for transparency and accountability in the oil, gas and mining industries.
The Board of the Norway-based body had said earlier this month that Guyana had achieved a “fairly low” overall score in implementing its 2019 EITI Standard.
The EITI’s 2019 Standard requires that open data on natural resource income and contracts be a routine part of government and corporate reporting, while providing information to stakeholders in a timeframe and format that support widespread use in analysis and decision making. The Board which manages 55 member countries said the overall score of 52 points for Guyana reflects an average of the three component scores. These scores were given in the areas of: Outcomes and Impact, Transparency and Stakeholder engagement.
Kaieteur News understands that Guyana will have until April 1, 2024 to carry out corrective actions. The Board warned that failure to demonstrate progress in the next Validation Exercise may result in temporary suspension.
In accordance with the EITI Standard, Guyana’s Multi-Stakeholder Group may request an extension of this timeframe or request that Validation commences earlier than scheduled.

Guyana was accepted as an EITI implementing country on October 24, 2017. The first Validation of Guyana was scheduled to commence on April 25, 2020. Due to the transition to the revised Validation model, the Board rescheduled the Validation to commence on July 1, 2021. On July 9, 2021, the EITI Board approved Guyana’s request for an extension to its Validation deadline to October 1, 2021.

Guyana EITI collated documentation for Validation using the Board-agreed data collection templates on Stakeholder engagement, Transparency and Outcomes and impact. The files are available on the Guyana EITI website. The International Secretariat’s Validation team prepared an initial assessment following the Validation procedure and Validation Guide. In accordance with the Validation procedure, a public call for stakeholder views on EITI implementation was open from September 1 to October 1, 2021. Virtual stakeholder consultations were undertaken.

ABOUT EITI
The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is a global standard for the good governance of oil, gas and mineral resources. It seeks to address key governance issues in the extractive sectors.

The EITI Standard requires information along the extractive industry value chain from the point of extraction, to how the revenue makes its way through the government and its contribution to the economy.

This includes how licences and contracts are allocated and registered, who the beneficial owners of those operations are, what the fiscal and legal arrangements are, how much is produced, how much is paid, where the revenue is allocated, and its contributions to the economy, including employment.

The EITI 2019 Standard represents an evolution of the foregoing transparency requirements demanded by the body. It is an improvement of the EITI 2016 Standard. The 2019 EITI Standard requires contract transparency for new contracts from 2021 as well as adherence to stricter requirements on environmental reporting and gender. (https://eiti.org/articles/eiti-launches-2019-eiti-standard).