The Directorate of Petroleum (DoP) recognizes that transparency, accountability, and proper stewardship of Oil and Gas resources are critical to ensuring the sustainable and effective management of the sector while also maintaining public trust.
To ensure transparency and accountability in the sector, Uganda joined the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI). It (Uganda) successfully applied and joined EITI in August 2020 as the 54th member. This will ensure that government publishes what it earns from oil and gas thereby promoting Transparency in the sector.
The following is a guide to the DoP’s key transparency and accountability mechanisms.
The Access to Information Act, 2005.
Under the Access to Information Act, the DoP is obliged to respond to reasonably formulated requests for Information and records. However, DoP may apply exemptions from release to certain types of information.
Ethical Conduct
The Directorate of Petroleum is committed to addressing the critical challenges facing the oil and gas sector today with integrity. The DoP seeks to avoid situations in which an ethical question may cause uncertainty about the Directorate’s impact and mission by adherence to the regulations and guidance of the Office of the Auditor General, Inspectoratete of Government and best practice as approved by Parliament. In addition to these important guideposts, the agency also has internal policies to avoid and address potential conflicts of interest guided by the Public Service Standing orders.
Environmental and Social Reporting
Environmental and Social Impact Assessments
To ensure that challenges related to the impact of the oil and gas operations to the environment are addressed, Government has worked to ensure that the Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIA) are done for each of the oil and gas projects prior to their approvals. This include ESIAs for the Tilenga and Kingfisher Development project, EACOP Project, and other projects in the sector. These ESIAs are done in conjunction with National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and the full involvement of the affected communities.
The Public Finance Management Act, 2015
An Act to provide for fiscal and macroeconomic management; to provide for the Charter of Fiscal Responsibility; to provide for the Budget Framework Paper; to provide for the roles of the Minister and the Secretary to the Treasury in the budgeting process; to provide for virements, multiyear expenditures, supplementary budgets and excess expenditure; to provide for the Contingencies Fund; to provide for the Consolidated Fund and commitments against the Consolidated Fund; to provide for bank account management, management of expenditure commitments, raising of loans by the Minister, management of the Government debt, authority to receive monetary grants and assets management; to provide for the roles of Accounting Officers; to establish accounting standards and audit committees; to provide for in-year reporting; to provide for the preparation of annual accounts and for the accounting for classified expenditure; to establish the Petroleum Fund and the collection and deposit of revenues into and the withdrawal of revenue from the Petroleum Fund and for the management of the Petroleum Revenue Investment Reserve; to provide for the role of Bank of Uganda in the operational management of the Petroleum Act 3 Public Finance Management Act 2015 Revenue Investment Reserve; to provide for the establishment of the Investment Advisory Committee; to provide for the financial reports, annual reports and annual plans of the Petroleum Fund and the Petroleum Revenue Investment Reserve; to provide for the sharing of royalties; to provide for offences; to repeal the Public Finance and Accountability Act, 2003 and to provide for connected matters.