Azerbaijan Not Meeting Minimum Requirements Of Fiscal Transparency: U.S. Report

The U.S. State Department on Thursday released its annual Fiscal Transparency Report, a document that analyzes budget transparency of governments that receive U.S. assistance. The Department assessed Azerbaijan as not meeting the minimum requirements of fiscal transparency for 2024, and has not made significant progress toward it either, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

According to the report, while the Azerbaijani government partially specified in law or regulation the criteria and procedures for awarding natural resource extraction contracts and licenses, it is unclear if it followed those procedures in practice.  "The government made basic information on such awards publicly available after it awarded contracts." reads the report.

In the meantime, the authors mention that during the review period, the executive budget proposal, enacted budget, and end-of-year report were publicly available, including online, and generally reliable. 

"They provided a substantially complete picture of the government’s revenues.  Budget documents disclosed allocations to, and earnings from, state-owned enterprises.  Information on debt obligations, including major state-owned enterprise debt, was publicly available and updated within a reasonable period," reads the report.

This year's report lays out two steps Azerbaijan could take to improve fiscal transparency.  Those steps are: Specifying fully in law or regulation the criteria and procedures for awarding natural resource extraction contracts; and following natural resource extraction laws and regulations in practice.

Overall In this year’s report, U.S. officials found that 72 of 139 governments (and the Palestinian Authority) assessed met the minimum fiscal transparency requirements.  Sixty-eight did not meet the minimum fiscal transparency requirements. Of these, however, 23 made significant progress toward meeting the minimum fiscal transparency requirements, the State Department said.