The Publish What You Pay campaign is where international politics, financial reporting, and the developing world intersect. The campaign seeks to force companies in extractive industries (such as oil and gas) to make public their payments to governments in the developing world.
It began in 1999 with an “exposé of the apparent complicity of the oil and banking industries in the plundering of state assets during Angola ‘s 40-year civil war. It became clear that the refusal to release financial information by major multinational oil companies aided and abetted the mismanagement and embezzlement of oil revenues by the elite in the country.”
The campaign is supported by numerous charities and political organizations such as Oxfam Great Britain and Human Rights Watch. They lobby bodies like the World Bank and IMF, as well the IASB, the International Accounting Standards Board.
Publish What You Pay calls for an International Financial Reporting Standard for the extractive industries to include a requirement that extractive industry companies disclose in their accounts all payments that they make to the governments of countries in which they extract resources, and to agencies or representatives of those governments.
Sounds like a good idea to me. It’s actually surprising to me as a young idealist that this isn’t already part of international standards. But the most recent letter sent from PWYP to the IASB on the matter expresses the campaign’s consternation with the IASB’s actions to date, and I have to agree.
The IASB’s proposed standard leaves segmentation up to management’s discretion, rather than mandating country-by-country grouping. The standard is barely even that – it basically just codifies laissez-faire.
I’m dismayed to say the least by the lack of support this has received from the Board thus far. In a few years I will be working primarily with IFRS as Canadian GAAP converges. I’d like to see a greater sense of urgency on their part in matters of this importance.
The PWYP letter smartly points out “companies already need to generate [country-by-country segmenting] in order to complete tax returns in each country of operation, this should not prove an additional burden.” They also use the lingo: “The citizens of [poor yet resource-rich] countries are important, if non-traditional, users of financial information.”
This is one of those areas where the IASB could showcase those pervasive qualities in public accountancy like ethical conduct and protecting the public interest.
I am in total agreement on this issue, we have very little we can do to stop the atrocities in these countries. The companies exploiting them should have to report them on a country basis as opposed to segmenting.
Larry – thanks for commenting! :)
Here’s another great post by a fellow accountant in the UK (and much more recent too) about the push for country-by-country reporting in international standards.