Oxfam America rejoinder to company responses
(Full response attached)
Oxfam thanks the 22 out of 29 companies that responded to Oxfam’s open letter for providing a response.
However, Oxfam is disappointed that the vast majority of the companies failed to provide any substantive answers to the specific questions we asked in the letter, even with an extended response deadline. These EITI Supporting Companies were given an opportunity to show leadership and distinguish themselves as leaders on transparency and corporate accountability within the EITI, but declined to do so. We plan to follow up with the companies that did respond to the specific questions, and we continue to encourage EITI stakeholders to adopt strong Company Expectations with meaningful consequences for non-compliance.
Project-level payments-to-governments disclosure has been central to EITI since its inception. These disclosures should be required for EITI Supporting Companies in all jurisdictions (without any loopholes or exceptions) and meaningful support for the EITI requires that lobbying against the EITI Standard should be prohibited. Companies that cannot meet these expectations cannot truly be considered “EITI Supporting Companies” and certainly should not be leading the Initiative.