The FT has commented on the latest Angolan oil scandal in an editorial this morning, saying:
Cases such as this simply reinforce the need for transparency in the dealings between natural resources corporates and governments. This is the purpose of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a voluntary code that has helped to spur greater disclosure since its adoption in 2002.
Western governments should now put the force of the law behind these standards. US legislators were right to include in the Dodd-Frank act a provision obliging US-listed natural resources companies to report how much they pay to governments in their annual filing to the SEC. These rules must be fully implemented. In the EU, where the Council is discussing a similar rule being proposed by the Commission, member states should resist calls to water it down .
Ultimately, it is in the interest of companies to increase transparency.
Absolutely right.
And good to have their support.
We unambiguously need country-by-country reporting. Only the self interested deny it - but they're in control of many oil companies. Which is even more reason for demanding transparency.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
A bit of ‘transparency’ wouldn’t go amiss on behalf of the FT!
Despite the fact that Mode 4 cheap movement of labour into the UK is central to the EU/India Free Trade Agreement, the FT hasnt made any reference to Mode 4 since it was an issue in the WTO GATS debates back in 2004 – as an FT archive search reveals. And this is the paper that people look to for financial and economic information.
The FT Brussels correspondent gathered information on this after I alerted him to it (the agreements are negotiated in Brussels even though the push comes from the Corp of London financial services cabal) – but as he realised the significance, he was told by the FT editorial that it is ‘a London issue’, and it was quashed.