EITI harnessed to ensure compliance in use of environmental, social development funds
THE government will be pushing for a more comprehensive Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) report to ensure companies comply with the law in spending their social development and environmental protection funds.
Mines and Geosciences Bureau ( MGB) Assistant Director Danilo U. Uykieng said that the agency will stipulate that environmental protection spending of a company be included in the EITI report.
“They’re claiming that spending on environmental protection but we haven’t seen much of that,” said Mr. Uykieng in a Tuesday phone interview.
Cielo D. Magno, an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines School of Economics and a member of the Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative multi-stakeholders group and its international board, welcomed the initiative, adding that government off icials have a significant role to push for a more transparent report.
“We need high-level participation. There is a problem of validation… What is disclosed is the balance of these funds but how they are spent is not disclosed… It’s diff icult to implement unless MGB issues AO (administrative order) making compliance mandatory,” Ms. Magno said in a text message on Thursday.
She added that the group has been seeking for the government’s support to bring out a more comprehensive EITI report that will include how a company spends its funds for environmental protection and social development, among others.
“For the environmental program funds the law requires that, but the accounts are in complete control of companies, implemented by MMTs (multi-partite monitoring teams) but with no system of accounts,” Ms. Magno added.
The 2017 report, which will cover companies’ 2015 operations, intends to include a section on company funds for these programs and their use.
“We continue to push for accounting of all the funds,” said Ms. Magno, noting that the group is also pushing to include nonmetallic/cement and big quarry operations.
The EITI was created by Executive Order No. 147 signed by President Benigno S. Aquino III in 2013 to ensure greater transparency and accountability in the extractive industries, specifically in the way the government collects, and companies pay taxes from extractive operations.
According to the 2nd PH-EITI Country Report published in December which is the 2014 edition covering the mining industry’s 2013 performance, the government has received P40.7 billion as payment for minerals, oil and gas in 2013.
In total, local government units which are threatened by the environmental impact of mining companies received P1.2 billion in 2013 while national government retained 73% of total mining revenue, the report added. —