The Papua New Guinea Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (PNGEITI) has welcomed a technical amendment in the 2018 Budget on secrecy provisions of the Income Tax Act.
This will now allow the PNGEITI to become an authorised recipient of tax data from the Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) effective January 1st 2018.
This is a change in law in the disclosure of tax information from the IRC to the PNG EITI for reporting purposes.
Initially the EITI relied on extractive companies to agree with the IRC to release tax information through waiver letters.
This practice was sometimes difficult to obtain, which caused unnecessary delays to timely release of tax information in the absence of such legal provisions.
Head of PNG EITI Lucas Alkan said they are grateful for the amendment, which is the second time the government has acted positively to the PNG EITI.
“We are seeing positive changes happening with respect to the NEC directives being implemented by affected government agencies,” said Alkan.
“I am happy to say that the way in which the government is working with us to address capacity issues for EITI implementation in PNG is very encouraging.
“EITI implementation in this country is gaining firmer footprints and we are very optimistic that the intent of EITI is materialising for the good of the extractive sector of the economy.”
The PNG EITI promotes accountability and transparency in the management of petroleum and mineral resources, primarily by way of producing a yearly report on the transactions in the mining and petroleum sector of the economy.
(Head of PNG EITI Lucas Alkan)