Pipes, Silence and Secrecy: Why ADSEA Is Not Answering Questions About the Buzovna Projects

Azerbaijan’s State Water Resources Agency manages water supply, sewerage and wastewater disposal systems in Baku. But when Turan requested information about the clients, contractors, costs and environmental assessments of two projects in Buzovna, the key government body chose silence. The case is increasingly taking on not only an environmental but also an anti-corruption dimension.

For several months, a pipeline was under construction in the centre of Buzovna to carry groundwater towards the Caspian Sea. The road was excavated, movement became difficult for vehicles and pedestrians, and the asphalt remained unrestored for a long time after the main work was completed.

There was no information board at the construction site. Residents did not know the project’s official name, cost, source of financing or the identities of the client and contractor. Nor were permits, project documents, an environmental opinion or the completion date made public.

To an ordinary passer-by, this might have looked like just another municipal construction project of the kind frequently seen on the outskirts of Baku. But the absence of even the most basic information turned a few hundred metres of pipe into a revealing example of how infrastructure decisions are made and implemented in Azerbaijan.

At the centre of this story is the Azerbaijan State Water Resources Agency — ADSEA.

An agency that cannot be a bystander

ADSEA was established by a presidential decree in March 2023. The former Azersu Open Joint Stock Company and Azerbaijan Amelioration and Water Management Open Joint Stock Company were transferred to the agency, together with their assets.

Under its official regulations, ADSEA is the central executive authority responsible for water supply, the operation of systems for the treatment and disposal of rainwater and wastewater, the technical condition of water-management facilities and the monitoring of surface water and groundwater.

The United Water Supply Service for Large Cities, which operates under ADSEA, services the relevant systems in Baku.

In other words, ADSEA is not an outside agency that happened to appear on the list of recipients of a journalistic request. It is the principal competent state authority in the field to which Buzovna’s sewerage and drainage lines belong.

Yet when asked who commissioned the work, how it was financed, on what documents the construction was based and who would be responsible for operating the line, the agency did not provide a direct and complete answer.

Two pipelines, one system of secrecy

The Buzovna case involves two separate projects that should not be confused.

The first is a sewerage line linked to the Khazar and Sheki sanatoriums, which are part of Kurort Closed Joint Stock Company within the Azerbaijan Trade Unions Confederation system. Its construction began in 2023.

In its article “Corruption Sewerage”, Turan reported that the technical conditions had been issued by the former Azersu, that the project was prepared by the SuKanal Research Institute and that Repair VS Construction Limited Liability Company was identified as the contractor.

After the line was installed, problems emerged in Buzovna: road damage, ground subsidence and sewage surfacing at the point where the new line connected to the main network.

The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources had not been informed of the construction in advance. No state environmental assessment was conducted.

The second project is a relatively short line intended to carry groundwater from central Buzovna towards the Caspian Sea. According to information collected by Turan, it is a plastic gravity pipe approximately 300 millimetres in diameter and about 300 metres long, laid at a depth of roughly 1.3 metres. It includes four wells and five connection points.

Hydraulic tests were completed, but no information board was installed at the site and the damaged asphalt remained unrestored for a long time.

Water is not the only thing connecting the two projects. They are also linked by a lack of transparency.

Questions trapped in the pipes

On May 25, 2026, I sent information requests to ADSEA, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the State Committee for Urban Planning and Architecture, the Trade Unions Confederation and the Khazar District Executive Authority.

The request asked relatively simple questions:

• Who was the client?
• Who carried out the work?
• Was a tender held?
• How much did the project cost?
• What was the source of financing?
• What inspections were conducted?
• Who is responsible for the damaged road?
• Was the impact on the Caspian Sea examined?
• Was an independent technical and environmental assessment conducted?

No substantive answer came from ADSEA.

Turan’s article “Buzovna Awaits Answers: Government Bodies and Trade Unions Continue to Play Hide-and-Seek” noted that the agency, the Ministry of Ecology and the district executive authority had failed to provide the public with a full explanation, an environmental assessment or a clear plan of action.

A new and much more detailed request was sent on August 2. It contained dozens of specific questions and sought copies of project, permitting, procurement, technical and environmental documents.

The requested material included:

• the decision authorising the project;
• the approved project documentation;
• the contract with the contractor;
• public procurement records;
• permits for construction and road excavation;
• the pipeline layout;
• the coordinates of the discharge point;
• laboratory protocols;
• the environmental opinion;
• technical and design-supervision reports;
• test results;
• the road-restoration plan;
• the document identifying the future balance-sheet holder of the line.

ADSEA did not provide these documents either.

Who is the client?

The available information makes it possible to describe ADSEA with confidence as the principal competent and operationally responsible state authority for sewerage, rainwater, wastewater and groundwater management in Baku.

But can the agency be described as the legal client for both projects?

In the case of the sewerage line serving the Khazar and Sheki sanatoriums, Kurort Closed Joint Stock Company may have been the formal initiator or client. According to previously obtained information, it was Kurort that applied for the technical conditions and signed a contract with the contractor.

The technical conditions, connection to the main network and subsequent operation, however, fell within the sphere of the former Azersu, which was incorporated into the ADSEA system.

The involvement of the agency’s subordinate structures appears even more direct in the new groundwater drainage line.

The Khazar District Executive Authority referred questions to the United Water Supply Service for Large Cities, which is subordinate to ADSEA. The service’s Central Laboratory tested a water sample from the drainage line. The Ministry of Ecology also requested information from that service about the implementing organisation, the contractor and the person responsible for environmental protection.

Yet the documents that would conclusively identify the formal client, contractor, source of financing and future operator have not been disclosed.

This creates a closed circle: the claim that ADSEA is the client requires documentary confirmation, but confirmation cannot be obtained because the agency itself does not release the documents.

One sample instead of an environmental assessment

Through the Ombudsman’s Office, it became known that one water sample had been taken from an inspection well near the drainage line. According to the laboratory operating under ADSEA, no pollutants were detected.

But such a test does not answer the main environmental question.

The sample was taken not directly from the Caspian Sea or the actual discharge point, but from the nearest inspection well. The authorities did not say when it was collected, which indicators were examined or whether the tests included petroleum products, heavy metals and bacteriological contamination.

A single analysis cannot rule out the intermittent entry of polluted water or sewage. Water composition may change depending on rainfall, groundwater levels and possible illegal connections.

The official reply also says that measures will be taken if illegal connections are detected in the future. This wording indicates that the authorities themselves recognise a real risk that the drainage line may be used for purposes other than those officially stated.

The environmental assessment that never happened

The most disturbing part of the story appears in the response from the Ministry of Ecology.

The ministry said it had not received project documents relating to the work in the area. Consequently, no state environmental assessment was conducted and no environmental opinion was issued.

As early as June 3, the Regional Department of Ecology and Natural Resources sent a request to the United Water Supply Service for Large Cities. It demanded information about the implementing organisation, the contractor, the person responsible for environmental protection and the relevant supporting documents.

The information was needed to initiate an administrative investigation into the failure to obtain an environmental opinion for construction of the sewerage line.

According to the ministry’s letter, the service operating under ADSEA did not respond.

This is no longer simply a story about a government body ignoring a journalist. A structure connected with the project failed to provide information to a state environmental authority attempting to identify those responsible and initiate an administrative investigation.

If the ministry’s account is accurate, the subordinate service’s silence may have effectively delayed environmental enforcement.

ADSEA should be given the opportunity to explain publicly why no response was provided and whether the information was submitted later.

Where corruption risk begins

A failure to answer does not, by itself, prove corruption. That distinction is essential.

But corruption risk emerges when the public cannot establish:

• who commissioned the project;
• who received the contract;
• how the contractor was selected;
• how much the work cost;
• where the financing came from;
• who accepted the completed facility;
• who signed the completion certificates;
• who is responsible for defects and road damage;
• why work began without an environmental assessment;
• who will take over the pipeline after construction.

These are not minor bureaucratic details. They are the basic facts needed to determine whether procurement procedures were followed, whether conflicts of interest arose, whether the volume of completed work corresponded to the money paid and whether a chain of state and quasi-state bodies was used to disperse responsibility.

When the contractor’s identity is withheld, the project cost is undisclosed, there is no environmental opinion, the road is damaged and documents are not released, possible violations can be neither confirmed nor disproved.

That is why transparency is not a decorative addition to an infrastructure project. It is one of its central anti-corruption safeguards.

The law links secrecy to conditions conducive to corruption

Article 9.3.8 of Azerbaijan’s Law “On Combating Corruption” classifies as offences conducive to corruption the unjustified refusal to provide individuals or legal entities with information that a public authority is legally required to disclose, delays in providing such information and the provision of incomplete or distorted information.

This does not mean that every delayed reply automatically proves embezzlement or bribery.

But the law recognises an important causal relationship: secrecy creates conditions in which abuse is easier to commit and harder to uncover.

That link is especially clear in the Buzovna case. The longer the authorities withhold the project, contract, estimate, procurement records and inspection reports, the stronger the suspicion becomes that the silence protects not a state secret but administrative convenience or particular interests.

There is a simple way to dispel such suspicions: publish the documents.

A reply to the Ombudsman does not replace a reply to a journalist

Following Turan’s complaint, the Ombudsman’s Office requested information from government bodies and summarised parts of their replies in its own letter.

This revealed several facts: no environmental assessment had been conducted, no environmental opinion had been issued, one water sample had been tested and the environmental authority’s request had gone unanswered.

But this correspondence does not relieve ADSEA of its obligation to reply directly to the requester.

The Ombudsman should not become a postal intermediary between a journalist and a public authority. The Ombudsman’s task is to determine whether the information request was registered, whether the deadlines were observed, whether any refusal was lawful and whether the information was provided in full.

If a violation is established, the Ombudsman has the power to require that it be remedied.

Until ADSEA sends a complete response and releases the requested documents, the right to information cannot be considered restored.

A pipe as a model of government

At first sight, the Buzovna case appears local: a few hundred metres of pipe, a damaged road, one inspection well and letters that officials did not answer.

But it is often in such small projects that a model of government becomes most visible.

One body says the issue is outside its jurisdiction. A second forwards the letter to a third. The third does not respond. The Ministry of Ecology learns of the construction through a journalist’s appeal. The Ombudsman summarises fragments of official replies. Meanwhile, the client, contractor, cost, permits and responsibility remain unknown.

The water disappears down the pipe. Responsibility disappears between agencies.

ADSEA has sufficient authority to end this game of administrative hide-and-seek. It can publish the project and contractual documents, identify the client and contractor, explain the source of financing, disclose the results of all examinations and set a deadline for restoring the road.

If everything was done lawfully, transparency should be in the agency’s own interest.

If the documents continue to be withheld, the silence will become a fact of public importance in its own right — and an increasingly compelling reason for an anti-corruption investigation.