Objective

Publish What You Pay (PWYP) members promote the public disclosure of extractive industry contracts and call for licensing procedures to be carried out transparently and in line with best international practice.

Context

The contracts between governments and oil, gas and mining companies are central to any effort to trace revenues and expenditures in the extractive industries. Extractive industries contracts determine the benefits, obligations and indeed the transparency of the agreements between countries and industry.

The recent commodities boom in oil, gas and mineral resources such as copper, tin and iron–driven in part by growth in middle-income countries such as China and India–has resulted in unprecedented profits for many extractive companies. But in many countries where these resources are found, government budgets remain meager, high poverty levels persist and development indicators are dismal.

If citizens are to know whether payments and receipts from extractive companies reflect a fair deal for the country, the contracts on which they are based must be made transparent as well. Unfortunately, the widespread use of confidentiality clauses often protects oil, gas, and mineral contracts from this much-needed disclosure. Companies typically claim that payment information is proprietary and would either cause commercial harm if made public or would lead citizens who lack an understanding of industry dynamics and investment risks to demand overly generous terms for their countries. Likewise, policymakers who commit their countries to bad deals based on poor information, advice or outright corruption fear a political backlash if they make these contracts public.