ERC held Round-Table Discussions on Extractive Industry Transparency Survey

As almost all oil-countries debate the benefits and the pitfalls of oil wealth, questions of and accountability in the sector, attitudes of different groups or categories, such as government bodies, companies, and civil society institutions to transparency in extractive sector are gaining increased urgency. A half-day round-table discussions at Hyatt-Regency Hotel, in Baku, Feburary 17, 2006, organized by the Economic Research Center took up the topic, with participation of representatives of State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic, Turkish Petroleum Company, Lukoil Oil Company, Taxes, Finance, Communication and Information Technologies, Industry and Energy Ministries, State Statistic Committee, State Oil Fund, Secretary for State Program on Poverty Reduction and Economic Development, UFES, USAID, Counterpart, European Bank for Development and Construction, Asia Development Bank, "Increasing of Transparency in Extractive Industry" NGOs Coalition, other NGOs and Mass-Media organizations. The round-table discussions were about on "Results of survey in oil companies, government bodies, non-government organizations and mass-media" which has been conducted within the "Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative" with funding of Open Society Institute.

Key-speaker, Gubad Ibadoglu, chairman of Economic Research Center welcomed participants and gave comprehensive information about the project and aims of the survey. Mr. Ibadoglu said that survey has been conducted between oil companies, certain ministries, state committees and funds as well as civil society institutions. He added that survey would give us wide-ranging results; we summarized the attitudes of oil companies, government bodies, NGOs and mass-media to transparency in extractive industry (i), the survey results can be base for future sectoral researches and state policies (ii), the results will be published in both Azeri and English and will be dismissed between civil society institutions, international organizations, foreign embassies, international financial institutions and others (iii). Besides those, the survey assessed the cooperation opportunities between interest groups.

He summarized the survey results and underlined that "survey shows that transparency and accountability are now seen as essential for ensuringthat resource wealth is used for the benefit of the whole of a country's population". He underscored that adhering to principles of transparency and accountability can translate to better economic results

Mr. Azer Mehtiyev spoke about the results of survey conducted between oil companies. He pointed out that survey questionnaires have been sent to 20 oil companies, 10 of them supported our initiative. Total 8 companies filled out survey questionnaires and sent back to Economic Research Center. He added that only 3 companies (BP, Shell and Statoil) showed their interest in public disclosure of reports.

Mr. Rovshen Agayev, head of "Local Finance and Municipality Budget" Department at ERC gave all-inclusive information about the survey conducted between government bodies. He underlined that only Ministry of Transportation did not reply to the survey questionnaires. His conclusion was that there are needs to enhance transparency in many government bodies (i), increasing providing information on EITI to government bodies (ii) and etc.

Mr. Vugar Bayramov, head of "Public Finance and State Budget" Department at ERC focused on the survey conducted between civil society institutions. He said that the survey has been conducted between 46 civil society institutions, The summarizing of the survey results can be characterized as following; civil society institutions have not used modern information technologies in order to have access to certain information (i), accountability in NGOs activities is not high (ii), civil society institution are not satisfied with the level of public control in extractive industry (iii).

Last correction date of the file: 13/8/2008 - 16:13:7