Company payments

While Bono and Bob Geldof have long been banging away, pressing world leaders for progress to help the poorest with debt cancellation, more money and better policies to fight hunger and disease, there is a tough new activist in town: Seattle’s finest, Bill Gates Jnr.

In a remarkable twist of political theatre, the billionaire philanthropist – who’s foundation gives away $2.5bn a year – has been asked by President Sarkozy to present his vision on how to finance the fight against poverty to the mixed bag of G20 leaders when they meet next week in Cannes.

To those who don’t know him, it wil

You can also view the press release in PDF

LONDON/STRASBOURG – Publish What You Pay, the global coalition of civil society groups, welcomes the European Commission’s proposals for EU laws that will require oil, gas, mining and logging companies to be more transparent about the payments they make to governments around the world.

BP and Glencore have been named as the worst offenders in a report detailing the extraordinary lengths to which companies go to cover up their tax affairs.

Pressure group Publish What You Pay (PWYP), which campaigns for greater transparency on tax from mining and oil firms, mapped the subsidiaries of multi-national firms to determine which were the most secretive.

In the mining sector, Glencore (down 17.7p to 437.075p) won the dubious honour of keeping its tax payments the most closely guarded.

Of 46 subsidiary companies, nearly half were based in ‘secrecy jurisdictions’, where requir

More than a third of the subsidiaries owned by major energy and mining companies including Shell, BP and Glencore are based in “secrecy jurisdictions” where company accounts are not publicly available, according to a report.

The study by Publish What You Pay Norway, which campaigns for transparent accounting among oil, gas and mining giants, claims that populations in resource-rich countries are losing out because they are unable to extract financial information from businesses operating on their soil or off their seaboards.

“Extractive industry giants’ corporate ownership structures, th

Last Wednesday, Clare Short, a former cabinet minister in Tony Blair’s government, came to the University of Ottawa to present on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, its achievements, challenges, and the way it is moving forward. Short is the chairwoman of the EITI board. She was joined by Mark Pearson, director general of external affairs at Natural Resources Canada; François Meloche, an extra-financial risk manager with Bâtirente inc.; and Ian Smillie, chairman of the board of the Diamond Development Initiative International.

The Zimbabwe Chapter of the Publish What You Pay (PWYP) campaign was launched in Harare on the 26th of August 2011 at an event organized by the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) with support from the Southern Africa Resources Watch (SARW) and the Publish What You Pay Africa Secretariat. The event was attended by more than 50 participants drawn from civil society organisations, community groups, parliament, government and mining companies.

Calls for mining firms to publish their contracts and revenue derived from their operations should not be viewed as seeking political mileage, but a move that would increase beneficiation from the country’s mineral resources.

Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association director Mutuso Dhliwayo was speaking last Friday during the launch of the Publish What You Pay Zimbabwe Chapter, a programme seeking transparency in the highly lucrative sector, said there was no need to be secretive if operations were above board.

Dhliwayo added it was disturbing for companies to refuse to divulge their earn

View the original letter in PDF

Dear Prime Minister,

Re: Opportunities to promote extractive industry transparency through the Open Government Partnership

Thank you for stating your support for EU regulations to require oil, gas and mining companies to publish key financial country- and project- specific information at your speech on aid, trade and democracy in Lagos last month.

The natural resources sector has the potential to generate billions of dollars in revenues that can be used for poverty reduction and sound investment. For decades, however, management secrecy has allowed corruption to thrive in countries such as Angola, Cambodia and Guinea. According to Nigeria’s own corruption agency, up to $400bn of oil money has been stolen or wasted over the past 50 years.

Dear Prime Minister David Cameron,

RE: DISCLOSURE OF PAYMENTS BY EXTRACTIVE COMPANIES LISTED IN THE UK

In Uganda, large quantities of oil were recently discovered, which by 2012 are anticipated to produce up to 25,000 barrels a day, rising to 250,000 in the following years. The revenue generated by the oil has the potential to transform our economy and push the country towards middle-income status. The fight against poverty and disease could be intensified and social services for all Ugandans improved.