What would you do with your oil money?

For most of us, thinking up ways to spend oil money is simply a fun exercise. However, for plenty of others the matter is less trivial. The world’s poorest people live in countries which are the richest in natural resources. Their countries receive oil money – and indeed money from gas and precious stones too – but no one is asking their opinion on how to spend it.

Secrecy in the oil, gas and mining sectors prevents them from holding their governments accountable and ensuring that the money goes where it is needed. Citizens are excluded from having a say over their own resources and excluded from the benefits of these resources. In this environment, corruption and mismanagement thrive. Vast sums of money which could be spent on a better future are spent on the enrichment of the few, leading to entrenched poverty, poor governance and economic failure.

That’s why Publish What You Pay campaigns for strong financial transparency rules. When companies publish what they pay to governments, citizens will have the necessary information to begin to hold their governments accountable. Once citizens know how much money their government is receiving from the sale of these non-renewable natural resources, they can begin to follow that money and demand a say over how it is spent. Without this information citizens are disempowered and kept in the dark.

Now, we have an important tool in our fight for transparency. Section 1504 of the US Dodd-Frank Act, known as the Cardin-Lugar provision, requires almost all of the world’s largest extractive companies to disclose how much money they are paying governments as a means to curb corruption and promote openness at home and abroad.

President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Act into law over a year ago, but today this ground breaking legislation is being challenged by some of the world’s most profitable and powerful oil companies which have been spending millions of dollars lobbying to weaken the provision.

In Europe, leaders like Prime Minister Cameron in the UK and French President Sarkozy have called for similar rules. But again companies are resisting this transparency revolution and paying huge sums to unscrupulous corporate lobbyists who are spreading misinformation on the effects of putting this critical information into the public domain. The truth is that a number of companies like Norway’s Statoil have been supplying this sort of information for years with no effect on their bottom line.

Companies must not be allowed to weaken a law which would help lift millions of people all over the world out of poverty. Dodd-Frank 1504 gives companies the opportunity to ensure they are not complicit in the disempowerment of citizens. Surely if they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear from transparency.