Resource information
This report explores direct action that home countries can take to support improved transparency of revenue flows in the extractive industries. Home countries are those which are "home" to companies either registered or raising capital within their jurisdictions. For this report, ten home countries were ranked on the four areas of : (1) requirements for disclosure of revenue payments, (2) requirements for disclosure of supportive financial information, (3)access to information legislation, and (3) broader governance.Findings of the report include:there was disappointing performance from countries with existing commitments to transparency, as for example an absence of requirements for country-level disclosure, meaning that citizens from host countries are unable to find out what revenues their governments have received from extractive companiesleadership on disclosure requirements comes from a non-EITI country, namely Canada leadership on access to information also comes from a non-EITI country, namely South Africa as well as the harmonisation of international accounting standards, there are also moves towards harmonisation of securities regulations at the European level, i.e. EC Directive 2001/34/EC and amendments via the "Prospectus Directive" and the "Transparency Directive" however, the disclosure power of securities regulations is often diluted by various relaxation or exemption clausesmany countries reported a lack of co-ordination between different government departments about disclosure commitments in the extractive sector.The report also offers a number of recommendations:Home governments should seize the opportunity of reforms in financial regulations to ensure that companies operating within their jurisdiction publish what they pay to governments in all the countries in which they operate all regulators involved in convergence should focus on a "race to the top" in standards rather than any lapse into the lowest common denominator where existing accounting standards provide "grey areas" on scope for publishing of revenue payments, these need to be utilised by companies, NGOs and investors access to information legislation should cover information held by the private sector, as this would potentially allow a citizen to request and get information about payments made by companies to host governments.
