At the end of May, a group of colleagues at the Office of the Auditor General of Norway gathered for a 2-day workshop in fiscal regimes. The course drew on experience from Norway as well as Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zambia and Myanmar, and covered different models for calculating revenue from the extractives sector. Through interactive sessions and exercises, participants learnt to calculate government take, effective royalty rate, contractor entitlement and the rate-of-return-factor.

For Stefanie Grace Fernandez, compliance auditor and WGEI focal point at OAG Norway, the course was an eye-opener:
“This course gives you a great basis for analyzing the tax system in different countries. It allows you to assess whether the system is “fair”, and how one country compares with another”, she says. “With this knowledge, you can also gauge whether developments such as changes in the price of raw material benefits the government or the oil companies”, Fernadez noted.

The course builds on a longer course conducted by David Johnston, who works to design fiscal regimes for developing countries. Facilitators were Trygve Christiansen and Ole Husebø Schøyen from the OAG Norway.

If you are interested in receiving copies of any of this training material, please contact (trygve.christiansen[at]riksrevisjonen.no)