A special capacity building workshop for government organisations and private companies that will have to submit data for the Guyana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GY-EITI) was held yesterday and GY-EITI Secretariat head Dr. Rudy Jadoopat revealed that getting information from some government agencies has proven difficult.
The workshop, which was held at the Cara Lodge, was attended by representatives of the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC), the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), the Environmental Protection agency (EPA), the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Finance, the Guyana Gold Board (GGB), the Department of Energy (DoE), the Minis-try of Agriculture, the National Insurance Scheme (NIS), the Bank of Guyana (BoG), the Bureau of Statistics and the Auditor General’s Office.
Members of the GY-EITI’s Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG) were also present, including Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman.
The MSG consists of three teams of representatives from the Industry, Civil Society and Government, and is the decision making body of the GY-EITI.
The workshop was organised by the Independent Administrator BDO LLP, which was hired by the government to oversee the development of the country’s first EITI report, due to be finished by April 25th.
The workshop was aimed at examining the advantages of EITI reconciliation and its mechanism; the methodology of EITI reporting; the EITI reconciliation process, reporting templates and instructions; challenges in EITI implementing countries and schedule; and the deadline for completion and submission.
In his opening remarks, Jadoopat said, “We must get data and information from all the government agencies since this is first and foremost a government initiative and we have been facing some challenges… We have made progress and have been in contact with the representatives of industry… but not all government agencies have been providing all the information that we have been requesting or the Independent Administrator has requested.”
Jadoopat added that they have since been communicating with the government agencies and private companies to see how they can get them on board and to understand the reporting process and its importance to the country.
He also singled out GGMC as one of the entities that has not been submitting all of the requested information, in stark contrast to the GGB, which he praised for its cooperation.
In December last year, Jadoopat had explained that only over a third of the information requested from nine government agencies was received but was optimistic that the issues would be resolved by the end of that year. This did not happen.
Jadoopat had noted that a list of 83 items was requested of nine government agencies – GRA, GGMC Mines Division, GGMC Petroleum Division, NIS, the Bureau of Statistics, the GGB, the Department of Fisheries of the Ministry of Agriculture, the GFC and the EPA. Each agency was required to submit different information and according to Jadoopat only 34% or 28 of the items requested had been submitted by the respective agencies, with the GGB being the most compliant.
However, he explained that while some of the agencies might not have complied with the request for information, they would’ve submitted other general information.
“For example, you have the GGMC receiving rental fees, royalties and the Gold Board collects sometimes from the miners who also sell to the gold dealers that go back to the Gold Board. So you can get the total from GGMC but not the names of the persons, the details. While we have the aggregated number, we have no specific details,” he had pointed out.
Trotman also made brief remarks in which he noted that while the event may seem insignificant, it marked a very important milestone.
“It is a workshop but it is a working workshop and at the end we will be several steps closer to understanding the process of report preparation and analysing that report and being able to submit it within the time,” he said.
“I recall that one of the first acts of the new government was to have a Cabinet endorsement of the EITI process and that may seem insignificant to some but to us it is very important that as a government we embraced transparency and initiatives to come to discourage corruption,” he further said, while noting that their intention was to do so before the first barrel of oil was pumped.
“What is appropriate and despite everything that has been said and done, it is our quest to ensure that by the end of 2019 the EITI Secretariat and the work and the first report are all firmly established,” he added.
Trotman also noted that prior to signing on to the EITI, the government was mulling pursuing becoming a member of the Open Government Partnership or both but decided to go with the EITI and has not regretted it since.
