TRANSPARENCY

Transparency and fairness have been the cornerstones of the Kurdistan Region’s investment laws and policies. The Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative was incorporated as an article in the regional oil and gas law in 2007, and helps ensure transparency and proper budgetary management of oil revenues. The full version of the Kurdistan Oil and Gas Law has been available to the public since 2007, and the Ministry of Natural Resources has ensured that all production-sharing contracts including any amendments are available for all to see online.

Please click these links to read the Kurdistan Oil and Gas Law, a model production sharing contract, and PSCs signed with companies.

Continuing to ensure transparency and the freedom of information across the industry will encourage the kind of investment that benefits all of Iraq.

Under Article 15 of the Kurdistan Oil and Gas Law, revenues from current and future fields will be subject to regular independent audit and available for public viewing, and the Kurdistan Oil Trust Organisation shall discharge its responsibilities consistent with the Principles and Criteria of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), as set out in the EITI Source Book of March 2005. The EITI aims to help citizens in oil producing countries across the world to follow the flows of oil and money.

Please click here to read the Kurdistan Region's submission to the Iraq Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (I-EITI) for 2010.

Unfortunately, at the launch of the last Iraq-EITI report in Baghdad in April 2013, neither the KRG nor the senior supervising World Bank official was invited, and the Iraq-EITI council presented a document from which the chapter on the Kurdistan Region had been unilaterally removed. This underhand tactic set back the cause of transparency for the Iraqi people, and damaged the reputation of EITI for not ensuring impartiality in the revenue reporting process. Read the KRG's statement on the manipulation of the Iraq-EITI transparency process.

To learn more about the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative visit their website http://eiti.org/eiti and their section on Iraq http://eiti.org/Iraq .