Kazakhstan: From paper to digital transparency
Ruslan Baimishev, Kazakhstan’s EITI National Coordinator, speaking at a May 2014 conference on EITI’s effective interaction at the local level.
Both efficiency and accessibility improved in the process.
The Kazakhstan government receives over US $30 billion from its oil, gas and mining operations per year. This amounts to over half of the total government revenue.
With 97 oil and gas companies and 106 mining companies, effective transparency is no small undertaking. How do you simplify the collection of data from 200 companies? Move it online. That is just what Kazakhstan’s EITI team did.
For the first time, Kazakhstan used an online reporting template, which facilitated and quickened the reporting process.
Mr Naurbaev who heads up the country's EITI team said:
I am particularly pleased with the availability of electronic versions of the EITI reports through the country’s tax portal and the streamlining of the reporting process. Anyone can go onto the portal and search which company paid which tax.
Not only did this move facilitate easier data collection and accessibility, it increased the amount of data as well. The EITI Report includes information about each company’s payments for social projects, such as health and education. Social projects are a feature of many of Kazakhstan’s oil and gas agreements and the costs can be quite substantial for companies. Spending on the social projects can now be tracked on line.
In addition, transit of oil and gas is a billion dollar business. Both reports include oil and gas tariff rates, individual company payments, information on new pipelines, and a set-up of the structure of the main state-owned enterprises (KazTransOil and KazTransGas) as well as their subsidies.