A Kazakh Official Discusses EITI

This was my first workshop with NRGI. We learned about the chronology of collecting information from different sources, comparing and analyzing policies, and working out recommendations as final step.

I especially liked the parts of the session on licenses, government receipts, state-owned enterprises, and subnational transfers. And the practical sessions were very useful and helped me to understand topics better. I hope to use this methodology in Kazakhstan during workshops and trainings that we organize. And NRGI trainers were very professional, with deep knowledge of the extractive sector.

I think involving multiple kinds of stakeholders was an excellent idea. The participation of representatives of national EITI secretariats was also important—they coordinate realization of the EITI in any country and field all questions from stakeholders. We also observed and learned about the work of other multi-stakeholder groups from Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and were able to compare our work to theirs.

The workshop will be discussed at the EITI secretariat in Kazakhstan. We will act on recommendations regarding concretizing available data when describing the extractive sector; giving detailed information on the number of state company subsidiaries and their direct field of activities; and monitoring of dividend incomes on the government’s share in equity of subsidiaries. We will also look at payments by these subsidiaries to [Kazakh sovereign wealth fund] Samruk-Kazina and to the state budget. We will also address parts of Kazakhstan’s 2013 EITI report report where links to information sources were missing. The fact that the report was actively used during the training was very helpful for our delegation and helped us to see gaps.

In the future I would like to be part of trainings on quasi-fiscal expenses, transfers, petrol subsidies and subnational payments, as well as trainings on the encouraged EITI requirements, such as beneficial ownership or contract disclosure. It would also be interesting to learn about the experience of other countries in the establishment of benchmarks for the monitoring of expenses on social and ecological programs, as well as how governments support and work with such entities that run them.