21st January, Norway disclosed oil revenue payments by companies and launched its first report under the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). The report shows that in 2008 Norway's total payments reported and received coincided, amounting to 400 489 701 000 NOK. The Norwegian government already has institutions to control and oversee its received tax revenues, but this marks the first time all tax revenues are published on a company-by-company basis and reconciled by an external auditor; Deloitte. At the launch of the report the national coordinator for Publish What You Pay Norway, Mona Thowsen, commented: “We congratulate Norway for being the first OECD country to disclose its oil revenues and publish them on a country-by-country basis in an EITI transparency process overseen by a multi-stakeholder group comprising government, private sector and civil society. This is an important contribution to strengthening global financial integrity in the extractive industry internationally and we encourage all resource rich countries, including other OECD countries to engage meaningfully in the EITI tripartite process where transparency and accountability is a common ethical, moral and not at least legitimate goal structuring the relations between government, civil society and private sector”. The Chair of the EITI, Peter Eigen commented on the launch of the Norwegian EITI Report, saying: “By launching this report Norway shows its continued leadership in the emerging movement to improve transparency in managing natural resources. The Norwegian government is an active promoter of transparency internationally. By holding itself accountable to the internationally agreed EITI standard and publishing the figures themselves, the Norwegian government has demonstrated that it practices what it preaches. The Norwegian example shows that implementing the EITI can be done easily and efficiently, especially when a country already has transparent institutions in place.
February 16, 2010