SOCAR Debts Closed Due to Taxes of Citizens

Baku / 10.24.18 / Turan: The Cabinet of Ministers adopted order No. 626s of September 13, according to which SOCAR debts to the state budget in the amount of 675.4 million manat (approximately 400 million US dollars) were canceled. A proposal on this matter came from the leadership of SOCAR.

The debt was formed as a result of loans from the Central Bank received by the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) in 2014 (472 million 870.7 thousand manat) and in 2015-2016 from the International Bank of Azerbaijan OJSC (1 billion 291.5 million manat and 198 million manat).

In January 2017, by the order of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 1s, the government repaid the main debts of SOCAR to the CBA and the IBA for the total amount of 645.4 million manat from the state budget. The right to claim these debts was transferred to the state represented by the Ministry of Finance. It follows from the text of the document that the Ministry of Finance was obliged to gradually increase the authorized capital of the oil company by this amount (plus about 30 million AZN - accrued interest on loans). Therefore, in any case, SOCAR was the winner from these multi-pass credit operations.

The Cabinet regulations have not been made public since 2012. The document became public thanks to the economist Gulu Ibrahimli. According to him, this operation is a brilliant example of squandering public funds. --------08B--