Baku News

17 May 2006 [14:05] - Today.Az - The reports submitted by the stakeholders of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) for 2005 will be reviewed by Deloitte & Touche auditing company. According to AssA-Irada, the company will collate the reports on payments made to the government by local and foreign companies with the government's revenue statistics. Invitations have been sent to four international auditors (also to Earnest & Young, PriceWaterHouseCoopers and MurStepehensAzerbaijan). Deloitte & Touche was appointed to do the job after the evaluation of all proposals, a source from the State Oil Fund told AssA-Irada. The Azerbaijani government has already revealed three reports within the EITI framework. The Transparency Initiative was announced by British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the world summit on sustainable development in September 2002. Its goal is to increase the transparency of payments of oil, gas and mining companies made to the government and state revenues from extractive industries. Azerbaijan joined the Initiative at a conference on EITI in London in June 2003.