Deputy Head of PNGEITI National Secretariat Christopher Tabel stressed on the importance of ensuring contract transparency and systematic reporting is built into transparency mechanisms in contracts and MoAs.
The recent participation of the PNG Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (PNGEITI) in the week-long review of the Woodlark Mining Project MoA (Memorandum of Agreement) has brought the opportunity to advance the present scope of EITI mainstreaming from policy to practice.
Head of National Secretariat Mr. Lucas Alkan said the objective of the participation of PNGEITI was to make sure that the provisions of the EITI were included in the project agreement for disclosure of contracts or contract transparency. This has now become a requirement for all EEITI implementing countries, which includes PNG.
“As part of its efforts to mainstream the EITI Standard and requirements on National and Subnational payments, including Beneficial Ownership, and Contract Transparency reporting, the Secretariat has been undertaking joint workshops, presentations and information sessions together with its Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG)that comprises representatives from the Government, Extractive Industry and the Civil Society groups,” Mr Alkan said. “On the last day of the forum, the State team included the EITI reporting clause into the agreement. This is actually the second project MoA after the K92 project to have an EITI Reporting clause included. The PNGEITIenvisage to cover all mining projects in the country to capture national and subnational reporting requirements.”
Other discussions included:
Creating awareness of EITI at the project impacted areas, especially within the communities
Reporting royalty distribution in monetary value
Disclosing in monetary value the Developer and State’s share of the total aggregate on the mine project
Disclosing the production values and volumes for gold extracted
Informing landowners well on the ownership of the services and infrastructure during the operation of the mine before closure
Disclosing data on special support grant
Creating bigger awareness of information linking to social and economic impact assessment report by the people in the area
