Greater transparency in oil revenues welcomed

Lobby group Global Witness has described Angola's willingness to share information on the management of its oil revenue with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as "positive", but again called on the government to adopt the Transparency in the Extractive Industry initiative (EITI). The initiative, headed by Britain, calls for double-entry book-keeping, where disclosure of oil companies' payments to the government would be reconciled with what the authorities report as having been received, to improve management and transparency, said Global Witness campaigner, Gavin Hayman. An IMF mission visiting Luanda until this week to evaluate the implementation of recommendations made in 2003, said it appreciated "the authorities' readiness to share with staff some critical financial information on the current and prospective management of oil revenues". The IMF raised concerns in its 2003 report over the government's macroeconomic data compilation, disclosure of data to the Fund, and sharing of key economic policy information. The Fund has reported progress on all its concerns. In what analysts said was a sign that the Angolan government was attempting to become more transparent in its management of the oil sector, Minister of Finance Jose Pedro de Morais announced last week that he was going to recommend the release of a report on the oil industry by the auditing firm KPMG. The report, commissioned by the Angolan government in 2002, aimed to perform a financial diagnosis and create a monitoring system for the government's oil revenues. Paul de Sousa, a senior partner at KPMG, said De Morais was "taking the next logical step by publishing the report". Global Witness has led the campaign for transparency in the Angolan oil industry, Africa's second largest, saying that at least US $1 billion per year – about a quarter of the country's income - appeared to have been misappropriated over the last five years. "This missing money is over three times the value of the international humanitarian aid that currently keeps about 10 percent of Angola's citizens alive," a Global Witness statement said. De Morais said that for EITI to be formally adopted, the Angolan government had to be "certain that nothing could jeopardise the stability of Angola's contracts with international companies, owing to some clauses regarded as confidential". He indicated that the government would support the initiative at the "appropriate time" - many aspects of it were already being implemented - and the government intended to publish complete details of last year's oil earnings, production and profits.