Fossils are not for the poor

Russia ignored the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative

The third conference of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) will conclude today in Oslo. Despite words of support for this event in the final communiqué of the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, the organizers failed to recruit new participants. And the country richest in natural resources - Russia (which also hosted the G8 group this year) - completely ignored the conference. Instead of the heads of the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Industry and Energy, the Ministry of Natural Resources, Gazprom, Rosneft and TNK-BP who received invitations, only representatives of the Russian Embassy in Norway were present.

Speaking at the conference's opening yesterday, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gaar Store said the EITI's main goal was simple: to overcome the "wealth curse." “There are about 3 billion poor people on Earth, most of whom live in mineral-rich countries,” he noted. He explained this paradox by the high level of corruption in the extractive industries, which can be combated if governments and companies developing subsoil resources provide reliable information about payments and revenues to budgets, and the civil institutions of these countries begin to control the expenditure of funds received.

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz cited his statistics: “Hundreds of millions of people suffer from hunger and cold, cannot study or go to terrible schools. Meanwhile, the amount of stolen assets is 5-10 times the amount of economic assistance from developed countries.” According to him, more than $300 billion has been withdrawn from Nigeria (along with Azerbaijan, it has made the greatest progress in ensuring transparency) since the 70s. Only after the ouster of the dictator and the accession of this African country to the EITI, it was possible to return $5 billion from Swiss banks.

Four years ago, at the Sustainable Development Summit in Johannesburg, the initiative on transparency in the extractive industries was launched by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. And the British government became the main sponsor of related events. Currently, 22 countries have announced their participation in EITI: 14 African (mostly from the equatorial part of the continent), three Latin American, Mongolia, East Timor and three former Soviet republics (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan). Germany and Norway have joined the list of donors and are now competing for the right to host the EITI secretariat. It is this body that will work on a permanent basis, and therefore will largely position EITI.

Today, in addition to the general communiqué, the conference participants must elect the chairman of the EITI board, as well as approve the budget - $ 36 million for three years. It is expected that the post will be given to Peter Eigen, who comes from the World Bank and has spent recent years heading Transparency International, a global non-governmental organization aimed at fighting corruption.

Developed countries, fearful of dependence on energy supplies from regions with a “moving” political line, seem to see the EITI as one of the mechanisms for forecasting the situation and hedging political risks. The appearance of prosperous Norway among the participants in the program should demonstrate to potential partners that it is possible to stand on a par with backward states. The only major exporter of oil and gas in the West will be able to prove its readiness to follow its own behests and become an example to follow in the field of transparency in the collection and distribution of revenues from mining for all members of society.

Alexey GRIVACHS, Oslo