Transparency on extractive industries will help beat corruption - Financial Times (Letter)

24 August 2010 – Sir, Several recent articles have drawn attention to key developments in bringing to light corruption in African extractive industries. New US legislation may now lead to a quantum leap in replacing the opacity that clouds this sector with transparency. Tucked into the new US financial reform law that President Barack Obama recently signed are provisions that require US companies in the oil, gas and mining businesses to file independently audited statements on their payments to foreign governments to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Much of the credit for the latest breakthrough goes to the Publish What You Pay coalition of more than 600 civil society organisations and to one of its prime supporters, philanthropist George Soros, who weighed in to push for the recent US legislation.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/97e6669c-af11-11df-8e45-00144feabdc0.html