C4 Centre was invited to attend regional meeting on “Advancing Transparency and Anti-Corruption Movement in the Governance of Asia’s Natural Resources” on 21 and 22 October 2017 in Jakarta, Indonesia. The meeting was co-organised by the Natural Resource Governance Institute, Publish What You Pay Indonesia, Transparency International Indonesia and Tempo Media Group Indonesia.
Around 80 participants from various background (national and international civil society organisations, officers from Presidential office, and members of media) and countries in the Asia Pacific region (amongst others, from Myanmar, Indonesia, Philippines, India, Vietnam, Mongolia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and Australia) attended the meeting.
The meeting aimed to:
• take stock from the recent findings on the old and new patterns of corruption issues in the extractive sector and how they are affecting the development goals of governments and their citizens;
• revisit some tools and mechanisms for transparency and good resource governance that can be utilised to promote and to improve policy approaches, and in scaling up transparency and anti-corruption efforts, locally, nationally and regionally; and
• identify common areas for further learning or targeted collaboration of at least amongst the civil society and media organizations in the region.
In view of C4 Centre’s current research work that focuses on the aspect of governance and transparency within the legal framework of Malaysian state-owned enterprise (SOE) or known as government linked company (GLC) in Malaysia, C4 Centre’s representative was invited as a respondent in a session on “frontiers and patterns of corruption in the extractive sector” with special focus on SOEs and commodity trading. C4 Centre was invited to share on Malaysia experience with Petronas, SOE vested with the ownership of and exclusive right to explore oil and gas in Malaysia, and how oil and gas revenue generated through Petronas is spent and managed.
The importance of access to information, open data and disclosure of beneficial ownership of corporate entities, as well as the role of anti-corruption agency and investigative journalist in anti-corruption movement were also extensively discussed at the meeting.
Prepared by,
Rahayu Mumazaini
Legal Analyst
C4 Center
