Results of Monitoring Transparency of Executive Bodies of Azerbaijan Reported

The Governing Body of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) on the basis of values ​​and principles of OGP decided to consider the Azerbaijani government "inactive", as it is said in the final report on the monitoring of the execution of the National Action Plan for the Promotion of Open Government.

The report was prepared as part of the Project Partnership Transparency Azerbaijan implemented by the Public Association for the Fight against Corruption Transparency Azerbaijan with the assistance of the USAID.

The report covered the results of three monitoring actions conducted between 2012 and 2015, for implementation of the National Action Plan for the Promotion of Open Government in 2012-2015.

Monitoring among the central and local authorities was held on 9 areas, which included:

- Simplification of information;

- Periodical information of the public of the activities of public authorities;

- The improvement of a unified electronic database of normative legal acts;

- Increase in public participation in the activities of government agencies;

- The improvement of e-services;

- Increase in the transparency of bodies engaged in financial control;

- Increase in the transparency in the field of supervision and tax inspection;

- Increase in the transparency in the fields of performing the extraction of mineral resources;

- Cooperation and education in the promotion of open government.

The report says that during the monitoring of local executive bodies 180 requests in total were sent, of which a response was received only to 33 requests.

Only 21 out of the 33 responses received included the necessary information, while in 12 cases the answer was just a refusal to provide information.

The central executive bodies responded to 107 out of 176 requests. Only 73 of the 107 responses by the executive bodies partially provided the necessary information.

The report stated the appointment of persons responsible for freedom of information in government agencies did not affect the information openness of state bodies. The monitoring also revealed the unresolved problem of informing the public about the activities of state agencies.

‘From this perspective, the question remains of the Cabinet of Ministers’ reporting, whereas it should have been the first to provide transparency,’ the report said.

The monitoring also showed that not all international agreements, conventions and other documents signed by Azerbaijan were placed in the electronic portal e-qanun.az, while documents in foreign languages have not been translated into the Azerbaijani language.

‘According to the National Action Plan, in 2013 there should have been completed the creation of public councils under the executive bodies. The Cabinet approved the "Regulations on elections to community councils by civil society institutions" only in 2014. The situation with the local executive authorities is even worse than in the central executive bodies, the report said.

The report also pointed out that despite the adoption of the "Law on the Declaration of Officials’ Income" in 2005, the execution of this document has not begun for 10 years.

It should be noted that Azerbaijan joined the international initiative Open Government Partnership in 2011. -71D-