Trinidad and Tobago EITI Report 2013
Chair, TTEITI Secretariat
Victor Hart is a retired UK trained chartered quantity surveyor and project manger and the recipient of a Trinidad and Tobago National Award, the Humming Bird Medal Silver, for his work in fighting corruption and in bringing greater transparency and accountability to the country's energy sector. He previously served as a director on the Board of EITI International and was also Chair of the TTEITI Steering Committee from 2010 to 2019.
Trinidad and Tobago was granted EITI membership with Candidate Country status on 1 March 2011, and a Cabinet-appointed Multi-stakeholder Group Steering Committee was charged with overseeing EITI implementation. The steps taken were judged by the EITI Board to have satisfied the requirements of the EITI Standard and, on 23 January 2015, Trinidad and Tobago was elevated to Compliant Country status. That was a major milestone in our EITI journey and the publication of this report marks the first step in preserving our new status.
Key Takeaways
- The EITI is the global gold standard for transparency and accountability in the extractive industries and is currently being implemented in 49 countries.
- This report is published under the 2013 EITI Standard that shifts focus from mainly revenue transparency to include accountability for expenditure and sustainable development.
- Citizens can learn in a single document, how and in what amounts the revenues earned from their extracted resources are generated and spent.
Welcome to Trinidad and Tobago’s third Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Report. The first report, published on 30 September 2013, covered Government’s fiscal year 2011. The second, published on 29 September 2014, covered fiscal 2012, and this report covers fiscal 2013.
The EITI is a voluntary international coalition of governments, extractive companies and civil society working together to improve openness and accountable management of revenues earned from extracting natural resources.
It is the global gold standard for transparency and accountability in the extractive industries (primarily oil, gas and mining) and is currently being implemented in 49 countries.
Download the report
This report is published under the 2013 EITI Standard that shifts focus from mainly revenue transparency to include accountability for expenditure and sustainable development.
The data empowers citizens, through knowledge, to hold Government and companies accountable for how the revenue is generated and used.
Trinidad and Tobago was granted EITI membership with Candidate Country status on 1 March 2011, and a Cabinet- appointed Multi-stakeholder Group Steering Committee was charged with overseeing EITI implementation.
The steps taken were judged by the EITI Board to have satisfied the requirements of the EITI Standard and, on 23 January 2015, Trinidad and Tobago was elevated to Compliant Country status. That was a major milestone in our EITI journey and the publication of this report marks the first step in preserving our new status.
The news of our promotion was announced in Port of Spain by EITI Board Chair, Clare Short, and she urged us to recognise that achieving Compliant Country status is not a seal of approval that all is well in our extractive sector’s governance.
Rather, it is a sign of the commitment by stakeholders to transparency and accountability and the fostering of more informed public debate on the findings of the EITI Reports, leading to identifying and introducing reforms in the extractive sectors, improving the management of natural resources to the benefit of all citizens, improving the country’s governance generally, and empowering civil society to become better at holding government and companies to account.
Today, it is accepted that a country’s natural resources belong to its citizens and that more openness around how a country manages those resources is necessary to ensure that the people benefit.
Therefore, the data in the EITI Report is of importance to citizens who can learn in detail, in a single document, how and in what amounts the revenues earned from their extracted resources are generated and spent. Section 3, Overview of the Extractive Industries in Trinidad and Tobago, provides contextual information for the financial data that follow.
Future reports will be even more useful because the reporting net will be widened to include data on companies in the mining sector and in the midstream and downstream oil and gas sectors.
The EITI is a platform for developing and consolidating transparency and accountability in the extractive sectors.
However, transparency of the revenues generated and spent can only lead to accountability by the Government and companies if citizens take the time to understand what the Report’s figures mean and join in public debate about how the country’s resources wealth should be managed.
In order to advance this process, the Steering Committee will be using different forums nationwide to discuss the Report’s findings and all are invited to participate. In recognising that the EITI protects the people’s patrimony and our children’s inheritance, it is in your self-interest to learn more about the EITI and to support it.
On behalf of the Steering Committee and Secretariat, I wish to acknowledge with thanks the roles played by the stakeholders, Government, companies and civil society, and the Administrator in producing this report.
In particular, I recognise the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries and the Ministry of Finance for their contributions.
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