Uganda’s Attorney General accepts disclosure of oil contracts

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Attorney General, Kiryowa Kiwanuka says contracts with international oil companies should be disclosed.

The oil companies said they were willing to contract disclosure but the government has been reluctant.

The advice for disclosure will excite civil society actors and many Ugandans who have demanded that the government disclose the contracts.

The Attorney General in a letter dated 2 July 2024 advised the Minister of Finance, Matia Kasaija that he was at liberty to disclose the Production Sharing Agreements if he deemed it appropriate. The Attorney General’s opinion was in response to a letter from the Minister of Finance dated 1 June 2024.

Kiryowa Kiwanuka’s advice was specific to the contracts with TotalEnergies Uganda (Total) and CNOOC Uganda Limited.

In the letter, Kiwanuka refers to No Objective letters from TotalEnergies Uganda (Total) of 18 July 2021 and that of CNOOC Uganda Limited (CNOOC) of 29 November 2021, confirming that they had no objection to disclosing their respective Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) for purposes of fulfilling EITI Standard Requirement 2.4.

“Therefore, we advise that should you deem it appropriate you are at liberty to disclose the PSAs as prescribed by the EITI standard requirement,” read the letter copied to the Minister of Energy and Mineral Development, State Minister for Minerals, Deputy Attorney General.

The letter was also copied to the Permanent Secretary/ Secretary to Treasury, Ministry of Finance, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, Solicitor General and Deputy Solicitor General.

A member of the Civil Society who had seen the letter however said it was silent concerning the contracts signed with other companies involved in oil exploration in the Albertine. Some of those include DGR Energy Turaco Uganda SMC Limited which is a unit of Australia’s DGR Global and state-owned Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) and Neigeri’s Oranto. From Kiryowa Kiwanuka’s advice, it appears as if contracts signed with Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) mining contracts will remain secret.

Uganda was admitted as an EITI-implementing country in August 2020. When EITI countries commit to contract transparency, they accept to publicly disclose the full text of any contract, license, concession, or other agreement governing the exploitation of oil, gas, and mineral resources.

By joining EITI, Uganda committed itself to using its EITI membership to strengthen efforts in ensuring overall transparency in the sector, strengthen tax collection, promote public debate, improve the investment climate, build trust, and create lasting value from petroleum and mineral resources.

This week, the Executive Director of the International Secretariat of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI),  Mark Robinson was in in Uganda to follow up on an assessment of how well Uganda is progressing in ensuring transparency in the oil, gas, and minerals sector.

Robinson arrived in the country on Thursday accompanied by Suneeta Kaimal, President and CEO of the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI).

The Natural Resources Governance Institute (NRGI) has supported the building capacity of Ugandan civil society, media, parliamentarians, and ministries on natural resources governance, especially in accountability and governance.

Robinson and Kaimal on Thursday met the Minister of Finance, Matia Kasaijja, and his officers and discussed the progress in ensuring public disclosure of contracts under the Extractive’s sector.

He also met officers from the Attorney General and the key industry players like TotalEnergies and members of the civil society under multi-stakeholder groups (MSGs) hosted at the Uganda EITI secretariat under the Ministry of Finance.

Mark Robinson told journalists that his team found it so striking that all the stakeholders in Uganda were committed to the EITI process. ”The EITI seemed to have curved out open space in Uganda for genuine, free, and open debate on these complex issues around the extractive industry,” he said.

His visit to Uganda follows the validation report on Uganda whose results were released in May 2024. The EITI Board said Uganda had achieved a moderate score in implementing the 2019 EITI Standard (78.5 points).

The overall score reflects an average of the three component scores on Stakeholder engagement, Transparency, and Outcomes and impact.

On the Transparency component, Uganda achieved a fairly low score (67.5 points), Mark Robinson while meeting the minister raised some of these issues.

“We identified some of the improvements that could be made. He was very receptive. For example, how can contracts further be made open to the public? So there is a process to move towards that goal,” he said.

He confirmed that they discussed making public the audited accounts of Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC).

“He was very receptive to that idea. So I was very struck there receptivity and recognition from the government to respond positively to some of the recommendations,” added Robinson.

Sources who attended the meeting with the minister said he asked his visitors about what Uganda would gain from its participation with EITI. Robinson said the Minister’s equation was good because it reconfirmed why Uganda signed up to the EITI.

The EITI board had reported that there had been little progress on full disclosures of contracts in the oil sector despite UGEITI’s efforts.

It also noted that beneficial ownership data was not available though there had been reforms put to create a national beneficial ownership registry.

Robinson seemed to have had information to the effect that TotalEnergies and CNOOC Uganda had written No Objection letters to the disclosure of the PSAs signed with the government of Uganda. “Uganda has to demonstrate real progress on making the contracts public. That needs to happen not just those two but across the sector”

Apart from making contracts public, the EITI suggests that Uganda should make public the registry of the beneficial owners or the real owners of the oil, gas, and mining companies. “The fourth one is to reconcile some of the discrepancies in the mining data, especially gold production”

Asked why they were insistent on gold data, he said, “It is so important in many countries. And it is one of your major minerals in Uganda that has significant and considerable revenue. That is why gold matters so much than other sectors of the mining

” A UN report recently found that Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi are the main transit routes of gold smuggled from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to Dubai. In Uganda, there have been discrepancies for the gold produced in the country. The figures by the Bank of Uganda have been different from those declared by URA customs.

David Sserwadda, a Senior Mining Inspector, and a member of the Uganda EITI Multisector Group said there is an effort to ensure that different agencies of the government don’t regulate gold exports. He revealed that there had been a meeting with the Customs Department on how to align gold export in the sense that when it is not cleared, the Customs should not allow the export. Uganda has to close some of those before the next EITI board validation commencing on 1 July 2026.

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