T&T has at­tained a score of 89 out of 100 for meet­ing the re­quire­ments for im­ple­ment­ing the Ex­trac­tive In­dus­tries Trans­paren­cy Ini­tia­tive Stan­dard.

This fol­lows a re­cent val­i­da­tion as­sess­ment.

The stan­dard is a mul­ti-stake­hold­er ini­tia­tive that pro­motes greater trans­paren­cy in the oil, gas, and min­ing sec­tors, the T&T Ex­trac­tive In­dus­tries Trans­paren­cy Ini­tia­tive (TTEITI) said in a state­ment to­day.

It ex­plained this tal­ly was the high­est score in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, adding that through val­i­da­tion and the EITI’s qual­i­ty as­sur­ance mech­a­nism, im­ple­ment­ing coun­tries are as­sessed on their abil­i­ty to meet the pro­vi­sions of the EITI stan­dard.

This is the glob­al trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty gold stan­dard for coun­tries rich in oil, gas and min­er­als.

The EITI re­quires coun­tries to pub­lish time­ly, ac­cu­rate and in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied in­for­ma­tion on how much rev­enue is gen­er­at­ed from a coun­try’s nat­ur­al re­sources, how this mon­ey is al­lo­cat­ed to cit­i­zens and oth­er key ex­trac­tive sec­tor in­for­ma­tion.

The EITI Stan­dard al­so pro­motes tri­par­tite co­op­er­a­tion and di­a­logue be­tween gov­ern­ment, com­pa­nies and civ­il so­ci­ety.

Dur­ing its March meet­ing, the EITI’s board con­clud­ed that T&T achieved a high over­all score (89 points) in im­ple­ment­ing the 2019 EITI Stan­dard and the over­all score re­flects an av­er­age of the three com­po­nent scores on stake­hold­er en­gage­ment (90 points), trans­paren­cy (80 points) and out­comes and im­pact (96.5 points).

Ac­cord­ing to the EITI, “Val­i­da­tion pro­motes di­a­logue and learn­ing at a coun­try lev­el, pro­vid­ing coun­tries with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­mu­ni­cate progress and to iden­ti­fy and ad­dress chal­lenges in EITI im­ple­men­ta­tion.

“It cap­tures stake­hold­er views and al­lows coun­tries to high­light their per­spec­tives on the ef­fec­tive­ness and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of EITI im­ple­men­ta­tion.

“It ac­knowl­edges that coun­tries have dif­fer­ent start­ing points and face di­verse chal­lenges in im­ple­ment­ing the EITI, and that they will use the EITI to ad­dress their most press­ing pri­or­i­ties for im­prov­ing ex­trac­tives gov­er­nance.”

The EITI’s board al­so com­mend­ed TTEITI’s ef­forts in dis­sem­i­nat­ing da­ta to cit­i­zens through in­no­v­a­tive and high-qual­i­ty pub­li­ca­tions on ex­trac­tive sec­tor man­age­ment, es­pe­cial­ly in view of chal­lenges amid the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

T&T was al­so com­mend­ed for be­ing a pi­o­neer in dis­clos­ing ben­e­fi­cial own­er­ship in­for­ma­tion in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean and be­yond.

The TTEITI chair­man Gre­go­ry McGuire said to­day the EITI has helped en­sure that there is co­op­er­a­tion and con­sen­sus build­ing be­tween com­pet­ing in­ter­ests in gov­ern­ment, com­pa­nies and civ­il so­ci­ety.

He not­ed that through the EITI, da­ta on T&T’s ex­trac­tive sec­tor was in the pub­lic do­main and avail­able to in­form di­a­logue and de­bate as well as pol­i­cy mak­ing.

De­spite the pos­i­tive as­sess­ment, he how­ev­er, felt there still needs to be ad­vance­ment.

“While we cel­e­brate the high score in EITI im­ple­men­ta­tion, we have to con­tin­ue push­ing for re­forms in the min­ing/quar­ry­ing sec­tor and find­ing a way to em­bed the EITI in­to con­tracts and leg­is­la­tion to en­sure that we re­move all bar­ri­ers to dis­clo­sure.

“We live in a world and coun­try where da­ta dis­clo­sure is the ex­pect­ed norm and the EITI has a crit­i­cal role to play in this re­gard,” he added.