‘Clean extractive industry system’

The National Main Stories

GOVERNMENT agencies need to eradicate anomalies in the system of governance in PNG’s extractive industry, according to the PNG Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (PNGEITI).
It was responding to an article published overseas about two Australian companies avoiding paying corporate tax in recent years.
Head of the PNGEITI national secretariat Lukas Alkan said The Guardian had published on its website that “Australian mining companies have paid little or no corporate income tax in PNG despite huge profits.”
He said the publication on June 8 depicted a complex PNG taxation system that created room for anomalies.
“The news publication corroborated the findings of the 2018 PNGEITI report with other sources,” he said.
According to the report:

  • St Barbara, operator of the Simberi mine in New Ireland paid no corporate income tax between 2012 and 2020; and,
  • Newcrest, operator of the Lihir mine in New Ireland, paid nothing as well in corporate income tax during the 2017 and 2016 financial years.

“PNGEITI itself, through the reporting process sheds light on revenue leakages, policy and legislative inefficiencies and ineffectiveness,” Alkan said.
“This is with the aim of influencing policy thinking to help shape a robust governance system in the mining and petroleum sector.”
He said the PNGEITI had detected the anomalies and defects in the system.
“It is the onus of stakeholders in the industry to take the relevant decision to make things work better for the industry,” he said.
“PNGEITI’s core mandate is to promote revenue transparency in the mining and value chain through the publication of the EITI reports which is a culmination of efforts of a multi-stakeholders group comprising industry companies, relevant government agencies and civil society organisations.”
Alkan said the EITI’s work in PNG and other member countries was limited to reporting and working on ways to improve successive reports.
“Report recommendations and findings are left open to the public with the hope that those findings and recommendations may receive the attention they deserve and are acted upon,” he said.