Indonesia becomes one of the eight (8) EITI’s members in order to foster commodity trading transparency. This related to EITI’s 2016 standard that requires transparency of government revenue, including state-owned enterprises revenue in the form of “in-kind material” which consist of the opening data of selling amount and income.
“This event was aimed to capture input from civil society organization (CSO), SKK Migas, Pertamina and other stakeholders related to the inception report from Johnny West consultant. What are the aspects that need to be one followed up so that can be achieved optimal report results,” explained Edi.
The report prepared by Johnny West recommends that oil and gas import data should be transparent. In response to this, Aryanto Nugroho, Advocacy Manager of Publish What You Pay Indonesia said that CSO agrees with the proposed changes in the scope of the opened data. He also encourages that the recommendation has to be implemented.
“In the discussion process of previous reports preparation, it was agreed that the opened data is only export data and not put the import data on the report. Whereas, the share of government oil exports is very small. Therefore, if the report only listed the export values, the report cannot represent the real picture of commodity trading. So, in this case, the import data becomes important to be opened” he explained.
There is a debate of views among stakeholders responded to this issue. Pertamina’s representative revealed that the import data can not immediately be opened to the public at large. “Importing data is already available. It is in the Ministry of Finance, Directorate General of Oil and Gas, Bank Indonesia. However, it can only be opened for limited interests such as government interests,” he explained. The opening of data process in principle should consider the sensitivity aspect because it is very vulnerable and could lead misuse acts. Pertamina, in this case, is adamant to suggest that import data should not put in the scope of the report.
SKK Migas representative who came also voiced their views related to this. They assume that the data is indeed very confidential and when it published, it can affect the climate of competition.
In line with this, the Directorate-General of Regional Fiscal Balance added that the problem of import data is not needed to rush to do. “the concerns about the lack of a clear representation of commodity trading, because of the export value is unrepresentative and the exclusion of import data in the report can be overcome by way of opening sales data of domestic government parts in large numbers,” he explained.
The discussion then leads to the determinant aspect that how far government’s domestic sales data will be conducted. “So far there has been no agreement among stakeholders related to this,” said Aryanto from Publish What You Pay Indonesia.
In the report that still currently being compiled, it was explained that there is a different view between CSO and Pertamina also SKK Migas. The CSO considered that the transparency of government sales at the first trade level is the sale between Pertamina and the buyer. Meanwhile, Pertamina and SKK Migas have different views. They consider that the first trade is a business transaction between SKK Migas and Pertamina. Furthermore, relations with third parties are considered as second trade.
In response to this, the CSO expressed dissatisfaction with the level of data opening. This is because with such a level a representative commodity trading picture will not be achieved.
Although there is still a disagreement, the discussion concludes with the conclusion that the opened data will be conducted in the first trade level between SKK Migas and Pertamina. Meanwhile, the level of second trade will only be opened in the aspect of the mechanism and it is governance. (AP)