• Burmese
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Irrawaddy
29 °c
Yangon
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
No Result
View All Result
The Irrawaddy
No Result
View All Result
Home News Burma

Burma’s First EITI Report Attracts Mixed Reviews

Seamus Martov by Seamus Martov
February 11, 2016
in Uncategorized
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0 0
A A
Burma’s First EITI Report Attracts Mixed Reviews

Dump trucks loaded with soil at a Hpakant jade mine in Kachin State

4.8k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Burma’s first ever Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) report was published last month, focusing on revenue flows from the country’s oil, gas and mining sectors, completed as part of the government’s effort to become a full-fledged member of the global protocol. Burma became a candidate country in July 2014, and the country’s membership became a key plank of President Thein Sein’s reform agenda.

The London-based NGO Global Witness, which last year released a highly publicized report on corruption in the multi-billion dollar jade industry, called Burma’s first EITI report “an important foundation for more accountable management of Myanmar’s oil, gas and mining industries that the incoming government, civil society and companies can build from.”

In a detailed response to the report, however, Global Witness concluded that the assessment could have been more thorough in its coverage of the lucrative jade trade, which the watchdog group says the EITI report’s authors seem to have treated as an “afterthought.”

RelatedPosts

Paranoid Junta Turns to Foreign Expertise After 4 Years of Chaos; and More

Paranoid Junta Turns to Foreign Expertise After 4 Years of Chaos; and More

May 10, 2025
1.6k
Naypyitaw Parliament Crumbles as Myanmar Junta’s Grand Ambitions Collapse 

Naypyitaw Parliament Crumbles as Myanmar Junta’s Grand Ambitions Collapse 

April 24, 2025
1.4k
Plundering Paradise: China’s Role in Myanmar’s Environmental Crisis

Plundering Paradise: China’s Role in Myanmar’s Environmental Crisis

January 24, 2025
1.7k

Global Witness noted that the report’s author avoided citing already published government data on the jade trade that was released in a 2014 Harvard study authored by David Dapice with full cooperation from the Burmese government, or other data that Global Witness had obtained and published last year. “Most bizarrely, they do not even reference published government statistics on jade production,” notes Global Witness.

Although the full disclosure of who owns which firms involved in a given extractive resource project is one of the main goals of the EITI process, the report left out much of this information in its coverage of the jade trade.

“The report offers very little on the question of who really owns companies and what the terms of companies contracts are—both are crucial to the public’s ability to hold companies and officials to account and need to be prioritized in the next stage of the EITI process,” said Global Witness, whose own report last year revealed that several high-profile former members of the previous ruling regime—including the families of Snr-Gen Than Shwe and former northern commander Ohn Myint—were behind shadowy firms with lucrative concessions in Kachin state’s Hpakant.

Global Witness wasn’t the only critic of Burma’s EITI efforts. Wong Aung, director of Shwe Gas Movement (SGM)—an NGO created in response to concerns about the now completed China-backed twin oil and gas pipelines project—was part of the EITI’s multi-stakeholder group at the beginning of the process.  A native of Arakan State, Wong Aung said the report did not do enough to cover issues relating to resources in ethnic areas.

“I totally agree with Global Witness, there needs to be a more serious look at jade and other resources coming from ethnic areas,” said the veteran campaigner. “There are still a lot of political and institutional obstacles to making the report complete.”

Wong Aung told The Irrawaddy that he was left somewhat disillusioned with the civil society engagement component of the EITI process, which he said glossed over the concerns of ethnic groups about resource governance and environmental policies.

“The problem is that a lot of marginalized people, including ethnic people, have been left out of the process,” he said.

Wong Aung wants the incoming National League for Democracy (NLD) government to make an effort to address long-standing concerns of ethnic people about resource governance, lamenting that the issue does not appear to be a high priority for the NLD despite its national importance.

Firm Linked to Japanese Govt Fails to Comply

 The EITI report contained a great deal of data provided by international oil and gas firms about their payments and taxation levels to the Burmese government, which also provided data for what they received from these firms, something that the government had never done before.

The report noted however, that Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar), which owns a 19.32 percent stake in the Yetagun offshore project, did not cooperate with the process. Most of the other major international oil firms operating in country did comply. Data available on the website of firm JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corporation revealed that it owned a 40 percent stake in Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar). A 50 percent stake in Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar) is held by the Japanese government, while the remaining 10 percent is held by the Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi, according to the company’s website.

Despite the fact that Nippon Oil “failed to produce copies of their receipts” as requested for the EITI audit, the report’s authors were able to include some information about the firm’s activities because their partner on the Yetagun project—the Malaysian firm Petronas, which is the operator in the consortium of firms involved in Yetagun—shared its data. Information relating to the firm’s Burmese operations, including the firm’s local registration number and ownership structure, were not provided. Likewise, details about Nippon Oil’s auditor were also missing.

The Japanese government has held a stake in the Yetagun project since it entered into a partnership with JX Nippon in the 1990’s, before the project went online. In February 2009, the Japanese government, led at the time by the centrist Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), formally announced its decision to become a “supporting country” of the EITI.

Your Thoughts …
Tags: A_FactivaDevelopment
Seamus Martov

Seamus Martov

...

Similar Picks:

It’s Time to Engage The Resistance Govt in Myanmar’s Rakhine
Guest Column

It’s Time to Engage The Resistance Govt in Myanmar’s Rakhine

by Mra Thida
March 29, 2024
2.8k

The junta’s loss of control over much of Myanmar’s westernmost state has made the United League of Arakan the most...

Read moreDetails
Plundering Paradise: China’s Role in Myanmar’s Environmental Crisis
Guest Column

Plundering Paradise: China’s Role in Myanmar’s Environmental Crisis

by Vaishali Basu Sharma
January 24, 2025
1.7k

China’s aggressive resource extraction in Myanmar is leaving a trail of environmental destruction and debt dependency in its wake, warns...

Read moreDetails
Inspiring Women of Burma  
Burma

Inspiring Women of Burma  

by The Irrawaddy
March 18, 2016
33.6k

The contributions of some of Burma’s leading female figures are highlighted in the final part of a series that ran...

Read moreDetails
Paranoid Junta Turns to Foreign Expertise After 4 Years of Chaos; and More
Junta Watch

Paranoid Junta Turns to Foreign Expertise After 4 Years of Chaos; and More

by The Irrawaddy
May 10, 2025
1.6k

Also this week, regime boss Min Aung Hlaing joined his main allies in Moscow as his regime bombed resistance-held territory...

Read moreDetails
Myanmar Power Shortage Leaves Millions at Mercy of Searing Summer
Features

Myanmar Power Shortage Leaves Millions at Mercy of Searing Summer

by Yuzana
May 8, 2023
6.8k

Electricity and water outages menace households and entrepreneurs as country slides further into chaos under military rule.    

Read moreDetails
Naypyitaw Parliament Crumbles as Myanmar Junta’s Grand Ambitions Collapse 
Burma

Naypyitaw Parliament Crumbles as Myanmar Junta’s Grand Ambitions Collapse 

by Lin Thurein Kyaw
April 24, 2025
1.4k

Built by regime cronies just two decades ago as a monument to military rule, the Parliament complex failed to withstand...

Read moreDetails
Load More
Next Post
Rangoon Police Seize US$1 Million Worth of ‘Abandoned’ Drugs

Rangoon Police Seize US$1 Million Worth of ‘Abandoned’ Drugs

Civilians Displaced as Ta’ang

Civilians Displaced as Ta’ang, Shan Armed Groups Clash in Northern Shan State

No Result
View All Result

Recommended

Trump’s Tariffs to Hit Myanmar’s Garment Manufacturers Hard

Trump’s Tariffs to Hit Myanmar’s Garment Manufacturers Hard

1 week ago
1.3k
What the ‘Snake Charmer’ Analogy Gets Wrong About Myanmar

What the ‘Snake Charmer’ Analogy Gets Wrong About Myanmar

24 hours ago
937

Most Read

  • Indian Army Accused of Deadly Strike on Separatists in Myanmar

    Indian Army Accused of Deadly Strike on Separatists in Myanmar

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • What the ‘Snake Charmer’ Analogy Gets Wrong About Myanmar

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar Junta Moves into Nawnghkio Outskirts

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar and Russian Regimes Push Indian Trade Corridor to Bypass Western Sanctions

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar Junta Launches Space Agency With Russian Help

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter

Get The Irrawaddy’s latest news, analyses and opinion pieces on Myanmar in your inbox.

Subscribe here for daily updates.

Contents

  • News
  • Politics
  • War Against the Junta
  • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
  • Conflicts In Numbers
  • Junta Crony
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Asia
  • World
  • Business
  • Economy
  • Election 2020
  • Elections in History
  • Cartoons
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Commentary
  • Guest Column
  • Analysis
  • Letters
  • In Person
  • Interview
  • Profile
  • Dateline
  • Specials
  • Myanmar Diary
  • Women & Gender
  • Places in History
  • On This Day
  • From the Archive
  • Myanmar & COVID-19
  • Intelligence
  • Myanmar-China Watch
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Food
  • Fashion & Design
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Photo Essay
  • Donation

About The Irrawaddy

Founded in 1993 by a group of Myanmar journalists living in exile in Thailand, The Irrawaddy is a leading source of reliable news, information, and analysis on Burma/Myanmar and the Southeast Asian region. From its inception, The Irrawaddy has been an independent news media group, unaffiliated with any political party, organization or government. We believe that media must be free and independent and we strive to preserve press freedom.

  • Copyright
  • Code of Ethics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Team
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Burmese

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Business Roundup
  • Books
  • Donation

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.