In June NRGI’s regional office in Eurasia brought together more than 25 multi-stakeholder group (MSG) members from five countries for a collaborative training session on analysis of Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) report data. The training took into account a number of EITI reports expected by the end of year.
Elvira Jantureeva, a member of the Geology and Subsoil Use Committee in Kazakhstan’s Investments and Development Ministry, was one of seven government representatives who participated in the workshop. Responsible for adherence to and compliance with the EITI process, Jantureeva is an expert in its practice in Kazakhstan. The world’s largest uranium producer, Kazakhstan’s mining and oil and gas industries accounted for 53 percent of state budget in 2013.
Kazakhstan was among the first countries in Eurasia to publish its EITI report based on the new standard. The report included lots of new information on extractives, including data disaggregated by companies and payments. Also, the country managed the development of an online tool for all payments types by all companies. But Kazakhstan’s performance on NRGI’s Resource Governance Index shows room for improvement.
NRGI has qualified the country’s 2013 EITI report as very comprehensive. However, in our 2014 report Reforming National Oil Companies, NRGI noted that KazMunaiGas, Kazakhstan’s national oil company, faced governance challenges that affect its commercial performance. A sovereign wealth fund in Kazakhstan controls the company, but exercises little oversight over its operations.
The June session was Jantureeva’s first NRGI training. After the training, Jantureeva shared her thoughts on the experience:
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.
Fidan Bagirova is NRGI’s Eurasia senior officer.