The NGO Coalition for Increasing Transparency in Extractive Industries appealed to President Ilham Aliyev, expressing concern about the upcoming October 25 meeting of the Board of EITI (International Initiative for Increasing Transparency in Extractive Industries).
They recalled that the NGO Coalition for Increasing Transparency in Extractive Industry has been operating since 2004 as a reliable partner of government agencies and companies.
The coalition involves 150 organizations and prominent individuals. The Coalition has actively participated in the implementation of EITI in Azerbaijan and contributed to it.
However, due to the fact that in recent years NGOs have encountered difficulties, on April 15, 2015, Azerbaijan lost full-fledged membership in the EITI.
The following year the country was asked to correct the situation. After that, the head of the EITI Ms Short visited Baku and was received by Ilham Aliyev himself.
The process of solving problems of the NGO coalition members started. In particular, the problems faced by NGO leaders and activists when leaving Azerbaijan are solved, the arrest of bank accounts is lifted, and the Justice Ministry has registered a number of grant contracts.
However, these steps were not consistent and systemic, so civil society issues have not been resolved fully and on time.
In this case, the grant agreements of several organizations involved in the coalition are not registered by the Ministry of Justice and cannot be used, as well as funds in the bank accounts of the NGOs.
Moreover, grants to two organizations after the lifting of banking arrests were written off on account of the tax debt.
Due to the tax penalties six companies were not able to recover their activity.
Two coalition members for various reasons are still under arrest.
Against one of the coalition members the criminal case initiated several years ago is continued and it is banned from leaving the country.
However, the worst thing is that because of the amendments to the legislation, the conditions for civil society activities deteriorated further.
As a result, half the measures envisaged have not been implemented, making it difficult to recover the full membership of Azerbaijan in EITI.
Therefore the coalition calls to eliminate the above problems by October 25.
The coalition members decided to share their concerns with the President and ask him to take the initiative in solving problems. -06B-
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