Naypitaw – International Board of Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) agreed to give Indonesia full member status or compliant country of the EITI. This decision is designated in the 28th International Board Meeting of EITI on Wednesday, October 15 2014 in Naypitaw, Myanmar.
EITI is a global coalition of governments, companies, and civil society on improving the openness and accountable management of revenues from extractive sectors by disclosing the taxes and other payments made by oil, gas, and mining companies to governments. So far, there are 48 countries, including Indonesia, that implement the EITI standard.
The legal framework of EITI implementation in Indonesia is Presidential Decree No. 26 Year 2010 on Transparency of State and Local Revenue obtained from the Extractive Industries. On October 2010, Indonesia got “candidate country” status and finally recognized as “compliant country” after getting assessed based on 2011 EITI Standard. By reaching this new status, Indonesia become the first ASEAN countries who is given “EITI compliant” status. Actually, EITI are also implemented in Philippine and Myanmar, but they have not reached “compliant country” status yet. Meanwhile, East Timor have already given “compliant country” status since 2010.
Maryati Abdullah, Coordinator of Publish What You Pay Indonesia, said:
“The achievement of Indonesia by naming “compliant country” of EITI is need to be appreciated. EITI can be very helpful to suppress the corruption on oil, gas and mining sectors, reduce the revenue loss, and improve oil, gas, and mining governance, especially for the licensing and production monitoring. This happens only if the findings and recommendations of EITI Indonesia Report are followed-up consistently by government and other multi-stake holders.”,
Fabby Tumiwa, Member of International Boards of EITI (2013-2016) and The Chair of PWYP Indonesia Boards, said:
“Compliant status can be main asset for new government, Jokowi-JK, to lead the improvement of transparency and accountability in extractive industries in Indonesia and also promote it in the ASEAN-level. Along with Philippine and Myanmar, Indonesia can promote EITI as an instrument on policy harmonization to improve oil, gas, and mining governance in ASEAN, especially in the framework of ASEAN Economic Community, based on the norms.”
Positive accomplishment on EITI is an achievement on last period of the current government and important to see as starting point of the extractive industries governance improvement in Indonesia.
PWYP Indonesia encourages Joko Widodo Government to implement EITI seriously and consistently, especially on the drafting process and revenue’s recording as defined by the EITI Standard 2013 that will be references to generate annual report. PWYP Indonesia hopes EITI Report, covering 2012 and 2013 fiscal year and will be released on 2015, can consider transparency on oil, gas, and mining contract and data openness on beneficial ownership as defined by EITI Standard 2013.
“Indonesia should improve the quality of EITI Report, strengthen the leadership and capacity also resources of EITI Indonesia secretariat, encourage the dissemination of information in sub-national level, especially for resource rich sub-national level, and monitor the reformation of oil, gas, and mining sector in order to ensure the utilization of natural resources for welfare,” emphasized by Maryati Abdullah.
“Coordinator Minister of Economic Affairs along with Minister of Energy and Natural Resources also Minister of Finance in the upcoming government should have high commitment for a better EITI implementation in Indonesia.”, added by Fabby Tumiwa.
Naypitaw, October 16, 2014