Today.Az » Business » Samir Sharifov: "Many extracting companies decline to publicize reports on transparency privately"
14 February 2006 [22:10] - Today.Az
In the framework of the fourth sitting of the International Consulting Group of the Extracting Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) to take place on 5 April in Baku the workshop or conference on transparency are scheduled to be organized, the EITI commission head, the chief of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAR) Samir Sharifov said.

According to him, the program of events will be identified till late February, Trend reports.

The third sitting of the consulting group will be held on 16 February in Nigeria, where Samir Sharifov will participate from Azerbaijan. Consultations will be held at this meeting, as none of the countries rich in minerals has made reports on transparency and Azerbaijan, as the pilot country in the EITI initiative is the only one, taking into account that Azerbaijan publicized not only reports of the government, but the auditor's report as well, according to which the data is verified. According to Sharifov, preparations of the fourth report by the second half of 2005 started and it will be publicized by 15 April.

Meanwhile, today, as the head of the state commission noted, not all oil and gas companies publicize their reports individually, although the state commission takes all measures for that. Although in the trilateral memorandum, signed in 2004 between the state commission and the coalition of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on transparency it was not mentioned that the companies could not reveal their data to the public privately. Some of them set to do it, BP in particular.

The other guess, it is a commercial secret, which disclosure breaks the contractual provisions. "We do not think the refusal is related exactly to their operations in Azerbaijan. It is rather connected with their global activities, as by disclosure of the report the data on their activities in other countries throughout the world will be opened. The Azerbaijan government does not intend to make obstacles, therefore the companies are suggested to publicize their reports, but not made do it," Sharifov noted.



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