We were surprised and disappointed that Global Witness produced the highly misleading report: Azerbaijan Anonymous, based on prejudiced and inaccurate information.
We believe that the organisation, which claims to be “an internationally renowned NGO that works in the public interest on transparency issues” has created a report which wrongfully criticises SOCAR. The report is based on the highly selective interpretation of documentation and the careful selection of superficial questions to create the impression of wrongdoing.
The laws of Azerbaijan which govern procurement and production sharing agreements are publicly available. However, Global Witness chose to ignore this material in order and repeatedly raises the issue of public tendering for the sole purpose of creating a negative impression of SOCAR’s business activities.
The following section covers the “issues” raised by Global Witness and broadly follows the sections outlined in their misleading report. SOCAR seeks to act with genuine transparency rather than to defend against unfounded speculation as made in the report by Global Witness. With that in mind, we have made all the explanations below public and have created a channel by which to contact us directly with comments or further questions.
It is hoped that after reading this information, any independent observer will be able to draw their own conclusions about SOCAR’s business ethnics and speculate on the possible motivation behind Global Witness publishing such an outrageous report.