• by IPS Correspondents
• Monday, July 02, 2012
• Inter Press Service

Jul 02 (IPS) - LIMA, Jun 29 2012 (IPS) - Peru was certified as compliant with the global standard of the Extractive Industries Transparencies Initiative (EITI) earlier this year. However, its achievements have not satisfied the demands of the local population in mining and oil extraction zones.

Some 60 delegates of the international EITI board met in Lima on Wednesday and Thursday Jun. 27-28 to evaluate the adoption of stricter standards, because the activities of the mining and oil industries in Peru are not translating into sustainable development in local communities.

A forum addressing community demands preceded the EITI international board meeting. Credit: Courtesy of Grupo Propuesta Ciudadana

The sessions were marked by lengthy debates between representatives of the government of President Ollanta Humala, mining companies, civil society organisations and multilateral bodies like the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank.

Peru is the first country to qualify as EITI-compliant in Latin America, the region with the fewest governments participating in EITI, although it is hoped that more countries will gradually join the initiative. Colombia has recently committed to implement EITI, while Guatemala and Trinidad and Tobago are aiming for compliance. Most stakeholders agree there is a need for new measures in order for transparency to have an effect on people’s lives.

“Instead of just providing transparent information about revenues from natural resources, people really need to know how the resources are distributed and used,” economist Epifanio Baca, a leader of the Citizen Proposal Group (GPC), a member of the international EITI Board and a representative of civil society on the Peruvian EITI National Committee, told IPS.

“Accounting for how the income is spent is essential because it has a positive impact on improving people’s quality of life,” he said. Founded in 2002, EITI is a global effort to get extractive industry companies to publish information about their tax and non-tax payments to the state, as a means of avoiding corruption.

So far, 35 countries have joined the initiative and 14 have been certified as compliant with the transparency standards, including Peru.

But being able to see how much the government is receiving from companies extracting natural resources has not diminished discontent among people living in mining or oil extraction areas, as Humala recognised Tuesday Jun. 26 at a conference on “Open Government and Transparency in Extractive Industries in Latin America and the Caribbean,” which preceded the EITI board sessions.

“It is still not enough to heal the cracks and fissures in our social fabric that date back to the birth of our republic. We need to do more,” Humala said.

© Inter Press Service (2012) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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