Group reiterates need to institutionalize EITI

MANILA, Philippines - A national multi-stakeholder group reiterated yesterday the need to institutionalize the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) through legislation to force all mining and  oil and gas companies to disclose vital information regarding their operations including revenue and taxes paid to the government.

Established in 2003, the EITI is a global measure that that aims to promote standards for transparency in extractive  industries. It requires the reporting of all payments made by companies, the corresponding revenues received by government.

The Philippines already released its first country  report on the mining industry, which showed 36 firms signing the waiver that allows the Bureau of Internal Revenue to disclose the companies’ tax information.

These 36 firms  declared payments of P35.26 billion. The bulk of the total of P29.01 billion came from six oil and gas companies while the balance of P6.23 billion came from large-scale metallic mining.

The report also disclosed the failure of  eight companies, most of which are listed on the   local bourse, to submit their tax information for 2012.  These were Semirara Mining Corp., Alcorn Gold Resources Corp., Forum Energy Philippines, Forum Pacific, Oriental Petroleum & Minerals Corp., Philodrill Corp., Citinickel Mines and Development Corp. (a subsidiary of publicly-listed Oriental Peninsula Resources Group), and CTP Construction and Mining.

Seven firms that signed BIR waivers were also found to have failed to submit their respective templates before the deadline.  These were Oriental Synergy Mining, Ore Asia Mining & Development, Pacific Nickel Philippines, Shenzhou Mining Group, Zambales Diversified Metals, AAM-PHIL Natural Resources Exploration and Development Corp., and Mt. Sinai Mining Exploration and Development Corp.

The MSG,composed of representatives from the government as well as local and international non-government organizations, said the difficulty in acquiring data from mining, oil, gas and coal companies has stressed the immediate need for the EITI to be institutionalized through law.

Legislating it would allow data flow to become more fluid and standardized across agencies, local government units and extractive companies.