The EITI Indonesia implementation team discussed the EITI validation and the progress of 2016 EITI Indonesia report. Attending the meeting (23/10) was the representative from mining association, civil society, and government institution.

Indonesia will undergo the EITI membership validation process to further learn the impact of EITI since Indonesia become the EITI candidate country in 2010. In addition, the validation also measures the extent to which EITI member countries adhere to the requirement of the EITI standard that has been set. The results of this validation will reveal the level of Indonesian compliance, whether it is categorized as beyond, satisfying, meaningful, inadequate, or no progress.

The EITI validation process will begin at 7-14 November 2018. The validator team will meet the EITI multi-stakeholder gradually, to explore the EITI impact from various perspective.

The EITI implementation team also discussed the progress of EITI 2016 report. The independent administrator from Parker Randall said that up to 16 October 2018, from 112 mineral and coal companies, 62 companies have reported, 45 companies can be contacted, and 5 companies cannot be contacted. While the oil and gas company, up to 22 October 2018, from 71 operators and 107 partners that become the reporting entities, 9 operators and 45 non-operators have not been reported.

The reason why the companies have not report yet is varied, according to Asrini, one of Parker and Randall’s accountant. Some companies have been contacted but they didn’t give any responses, some are still being reviewed by the company top officials, some are still looking for the data, some are facing the obstacles in preparing the report due to staff changes. Also, there are some which could not be contacted. Dealing with this, the independent administrator team send a representative directly to visit the companies’ office.

Besides finalizing the 2016 EITI Indonesia report, Edi Effendi Tedjakusuma, the Chief of EITI Indonesia Secretariat, proposed to lessen the gap of the reporting year. “Currently the gap of the EITI reporting year is two years. This is 2018, but we haven’t worked on the 2017 and 2018 EITI Indonesia report. Therefore, 2017 and 2018 EITI Indonesia report should be composed in parallel next year,” said Edi.

The EITI multi-stakeholder group (MSG) second the proposal. Composing the EITI report in real time will be very useful, because the EITI data used for reference for analysis is the most recent data, and can be used by local government in calculating the revenue generating from their natural resources.

The EITI MSG then addressed the revision of Presidential Decree no 26/2010 about the Transparency of State Revenue and Local Revenue from Extractive Industry. This presidential decree is the basis of the implementation of EITI initiative. The urgency for the revision is due to the change of the nomenclature of the related ministries, the dynamic EITI standards, lack of awareness from EITI Indonesia stakeholder, as well as the need to involve the provincial government who produce oil, gas and mining in the implementation of EITI.

Following up on the revision of the regulation, Edi Tedjakusuma said that the Legal, Trial, and Public Relation Bureau (HPH) of Coordination Ministry of Economic Affairs suggested that the EITI Implementation Team decide which ministry would be the initiator of the revision of the decree. The Coordination Ministry of Economic Affairs cannot be the initiator because there is no direct assignment from the President. On the other hand, in the view of the EITI Secretariat, Ministry of Finance should be the initiator as in line with the title of the presidential decree.