Citizens' groups in resource-rich countries have been pushing for years for the publication of contracts in which their governments award companies the right to explore for and exploit public petroleum and mineral resources. Without access to these fundamental documents, they argue, it's impossible for people to understand the nature of the commitments their governments have entered, avoid the serious risks that can accompany extraction, monitor the agreements effectively, or hold leaders to account for the deals they struck.
When Revenue Watch released Contracts Confidential in 2009, we repeatedly heard the same refrain from those opposed to disclosure. "It's naïve to think that developing governments will publish their natural resource contracts." Or, "Having these contracts in the public domain will steer companies away from any country that publishes."
Despite these warnings, several governments elected to go the transparency route, including Liberia (LEITI), Peru (Peru Petro) and Timor-Leste (La’o Hamutuk). Since then, reality has belied the dire predictions. Investors did not flee these countries; instead, interest in their resources has continued to grow. And as the power of contract publication as a tool for accountable management became clearer, over the past year a flood of additional countries have made firm commitments to publish their most important oil and mining agreements.
This emerging norm has been particularly evident in Africa. The new constitution of Niger mandated publication of all oil and mineral contracts in the country's official gazette. Sierra Leone passed a new petroleum act that requires publication of all oil contracts. Ghana's Ministry of Energy has made the country's most important petroleum agreements available for download online (Ghana Ministry of Energy). And the Democratic Republic of Congo has published dozens of its mineral and petroleum contracts (DRC Ministry of Mines).
This month alone, two new governments have joined the ranks of committed contract publishers. Building on the movement growing throughout Africa, Guinea passed a new mining code that requires the publication of all contracts, both in the official gazette and on a government website. And in Iraq, the Kurdistan Regional Government (Platts) published all of its petroleum production-sharing agreements.
These dramatic steps require follow-up. In countries with new legislation, like Guinea, Niger and Sierra Leone, governments must ensure that the law is followed and contracts are actually made available. Countries that have already put contracts online or in print must ensure that the practice is maintained, and that new agreements are subject to the same public scrutiny. And in all places, civil society and researchers must take advantage of disclosure and use the contracts for better analysis. But these steps demonstrate clearly that that the old arguments hold little weight, and that more and more governments are seeing the value of opening up their contracts for citizens to read, scrutinize and monitor.
Contract Transparency